In this free video tutorial, with the support of Nugen Audio, our very own loudness guru Mike Thornton will show you how to use their LM-Correct 2 plug-in to produce multiple loudness-compliant mixes for different delivery specs as well as repurpose content for use on different platforms.
A Tale Of Two Halves
In the LM-Correct 2 window, the left-hand side displays the overall loudness (integrated loudness) and maximum true peak level of the source file. The right-hand side displays the target overall loudness and maximum true peak level that LM-Correct 2 will output.
Integrated loudness and maximum true peak are the two pass/fail criteria for most loudness compliance content in music, broadcast and live streaming workflows.
In the middle of the window is a Presets button, which offers an extensive range of presets covering most delivery specs worldwide. However, if you need something different, you can type in the appropriate numbers into the Target boxes. You can also enable or disable either the overall loudness or maximum true peak options for maximum flexibility.
One Click Option
There is a new One-Click option which, if enabled here in the Options window, enables you to analyse and process a file by simply clicking the Render button. If you would prefer to use the two-stage process, you can first click the Analyse button, which will display the source file measurements, and then, if all is well, you can press the Render button.
This is great for making a mix that wasn’t quite compliance into a compliant mix. However, with the proliferation of channels and delivery systems, we need more and more to be able to deliver different versions of the same mix to be compliant with different delivery specs.
Constrain Maximum Short Term Or Momentary Loudness
Nugen Audio has added a new feature in LM-Correct 2, which includes an intelligent true peak limiter as well as the ability to constrain the short-term and momentary values, which you can enable and disable from the Options window. This feature is helpful for producing mixes compliant with the new EBU R128 S1 spec for short-form content like ads and trailers.
In the main window, you will see that there is a new row of parameters, and we can choose to display either the maximum short-term or momentary measurements. For short-form content, the EBU spec restricts the short-term loudness, which is averaged over 3 seconds to a maximum of -18LUFS or 5LU above target loudness.
DynApt Option To Modify LRA
If you have bought LM-Correct 2 with the DynApt option, then LRA changes can be made, which is very useful when repurposing content for different platforms. For example taking a film mix and prepping it for TV or creating podcasts from radio mixes, which again you can turn on and off in the Options window. Also, in the Options window, you have a choice of 4 presets…
Default, which is suitable for most audio material
Tight, which has a quicker response to loudness changes
Smooth, with a slower response to loudness changes
Music, which is a setting designed for music-only programming.
Now in the main window, there are LRA Source and Target boxes. We need to make sure that all of the appropriate features are enabled by checking these blue icons in the middle of the window.
Radio To Podcast
In this example, I took a BBC Radio 3 documentary to re-purpose it for a podcast. I changed the true peak to -3dBTP so as not to overload the lossy codecs. The integrated loudness I changed to -16LUFS, which is my preferred loudness for online content, and reduced the LRA down to 6.0, but as this is a long-form documentary, I did not enable the Short Term Max option.
Then it's a matter of pressing the Render button, and LM-Correct 2 will produce a file that is not only loudness compliant but also dynamically optimised for online content suitable to be listened to on mobile devices in noisy environments.