So if it changes the volume from -24lufs to -14lufs how isn't that riding the fader or changing the volume?

Great suggestion by the way. I dl'd the beta some weeks ago and have noticed that it appears to ride the fader somewhat. If it is altering the level from -24lufs to -14lufs...wouldn't that more or less be adjusting the fader/ volume level while the track plays?

It just changes the gain with a fixed offset when you click the apply button. It doesn’t move on its own or dynamically change which is what I’d understand as ‘riding’ the gain.

What's a fixed offset?

I thought it was moving because there's that line graph thing that seems to show the before level and then a target level, now I think about it. But I might have been interpreting that wrong. Which certainly wouldn't be the first time I haven't understood something.

The line on the graph is just showing the history of the measured volume level over time.

Right. And we see that it fluctuates. That's why I thought there'd be internal fader fluctuations changing the volume to the target volume.

I can totally see how it might look like this. Loudness will just "snap" to the correct value based on your chosen target when you hit "Apply". Our goal is to take the calculator out of trying to hit a specific target or match gains for something: with Loudness, just set a target, playback for a few seconds, hit Apply.

We had toyed with the idea of a dynamic gain riding feature, but we'd need lookahead to do the feature justice, and we felt strongly that Loudness should be zero latency / something you could put on many tracks in a session.

Righto, thanks for that.

so does this actually sound better than the DAW fader as it mentions in the description?

Is it the same thing as airwindows purestgain ?

I'll give it a go at some point

Not sure. But it looks like most of the Beta testing is finished and the plugin is available free for everyone on their site now. This current version will be backwards compatible going forward.

Loudness is not the same as the airwindows plugin.

In measurable ways, Loudness can definitely sound better than a DAW fader. Especially when moving quickly, DAW faders often create small discontinuities that add distortion, which will not happen in Loudness.

The real beauty of Loudness, though, is that it hopefully helps you do better fader rides, and it takes a lot of the guesswork out of some very common audio problems/questions.

For example:

• How loud is this track? What gain do I need to add/subtract match the volume of this other track?
• Are my L/R channels balanced? Are they in phase? How much would I need to change the gain to balance them?
• Is this clipping? By how much? What about intersample clipping?
• What's the noise floor of this signal, exactly?
• Is Spotify, YouTube, whatever going to loudness-penalize this master?

These are all questions that can be tedious to answer elsewhere but are quick 'n easy with Loudness. For a mastering engineer, this Summary page (with LUFS, RMS, Crest Factor, etc) is worth its weight in gold (it's free though!):

@ devinkerr

mmm. I like the plugin as an utility, but I don't get at all how it can sound better than a DAW fader.
I mean, you set the DAW fader and then it's done (until the next tweak), so I don't see how there can be distortion

Do you mean that it sounds better if automated ?
(in Ableton Live, I never automate the fader, but a little built in utility device I use at the end of each track)

Yeah, I was mostly referring to when the fader is moving (automated) unless the DAW fader implementation is really bad or in fixed point (which I believe may still exist). Loudness uses 64-bit processing throughout, whereas many DAW's still use 32-bit float. This isn't likely to matter, but like all things in digital audio, errors can stack up.

Here's a quick example showing a simple fader ride done in Logic Pro and the same thing in Goodhertz Loudness (default settings).

(it's a simple fade out / fade in on a sine tone with a quick cut at the end)



As you can see, Logic produces some hefty distortion sidebands during the movement and a big click/pop at the quick duck-out. I'm not trying to pick on Logic — most DAW fader look like this (or worse). I'm squishing the scale here to make them visible, but the distortion is definitely in the audible range. Whether or not this matters to your mix depends of course, but if you're riding a fader on the 2-bus or for mastering, I'd argue it's worth using ours

Wait that is hella interesting and looks "scarry". Can you expand on it / show how this project looks not in izotope so as screenshot of daw??

Sure! Here's a screenshot of the session with the automation:



Left: 500 Hz sine tone > Logic Fader
Right 500 Hz sine tone > Ghz Loudness

Hi Devin, thanks for the insight! Super interesting, but I can't seem to recreate this clear artifact with REAPER's automation. Have you figured out which DAWs produce this kind of artifact when automating? Also, is there a specific name for that kind of distortion?

Another question. You mentioned that the internal processing is done at 64-bit, but why is the output set to 32-bit float? VSTs that are capable of 64-bit float output wouldn't have the extra quantization noise that comes with 32-bit float, and given the CPU power available these days, I don't think CPU cost would be an issue. Of course, I don't believe I can hear the difference between 32-bit and 64-bit float outputs, and I'm not dissatisfied personally. However, with tools like PluginDoctor nowadays, some people are quick to correlate the presence or absence of quantization noise with plugin sound quality.

So, I was thinking offering a 64-bit float output might boost the appeal in terms of 'better sound,' even if it's not theoretically grounded.

Yeah, you're right! REAPER's automation is pretty clean. It does make some small blips when the slope of the fader changes rapidly, but otherwise it looks great. We haven't tested all DAW's, but I'd say at least half of the ones we tested had issues. Even REAPER won't let you smooth out quick jumps, which you can do in Loudness based on the glide times you choose on the Option page. This allows you to be lazy with automation if you're in a hurry.

I don't know of a great way to name this type of distortion, unfortunately — it's essentially like an amplitude modulation distortion, which is why it can produce sidebands, like in the Logic Pro example file.

We haven't released the 64-bit output option yet since it's not available for all plugin formats, but it's something we have tested internally. I'll see if we can move that up the priorities list since it would definitely make sense for Loudness. You're correct that it's not likely to be an audible change but every bit helps!

Thanks for the reply! After some testing, I've come to understand that the main difference lies in the smoothness of the volume transitions (gliding). With the default settings, the volume changes were slower than expected when writing complex automation, and it was quite tricky to get the hang of it. However, I found it really convenient for simple fade-ins and fade-outs. I also like how easy the meters are to read!

Anyway, thanks for the awesome free plugin

Thanks for checking it out! We're consider making the default glide times 150ms (this is for a full fade out, so small dB changes will occur much faster), which sounds like it might help in your case.

It's not just about the smoothness of the volume transitions but the update rate as well. For example, we just added an image to the website that shows how the stock Pro Tools trim plugin performs when fading out: https://goodhertz.com/loudness/. The slow update rate creates a stairstep of small digital clicks.

Thanks for the additional explanation!
It'd be great if you could also show images of each waveform along with the added spectrograph images on the site. I'm guessing the way each waveform decreases probably looks different too, right?

Sorry if this seems like a dumb question.
So, are you automating the fadeout with the Loudness plugin? (rather than the DAW fader)
Or are you still automating with the DAW, but just running through Loudness? (which is static).

I'm guessing Loudness is last on the master buss...

Not a dumb question! We're planning to post a "cookbook" of Loudness recipes eventually, since the plugin can be used in a lot of different ways, but haven't gotten the chance yet.

Yes, Loudness can definitely replace a DAW fader (especially if you want to use it for fades or riding a 2-bus in mastering). In that case, you just leave the DAW fader at unity and use the plugin instead.

You can also use Loudness as just a meter, in which case it's bit transparent and won't affect the audio at all.

Thanks Devin,
I'm getting a better idea of what this plugin does ;(

Dumb question. Someone else mentioned this, but as an Ableton Live user I follow the commonly done "best practice" of automating volume changes with the gain parameter on Live's "utility" plugin for a particular track. And only move the track fader for overall volume of the whole track. Is loudness meant to be used like "utility" in this example?

Yes it is.

@ devinkerr How does the « stereo balance » feature work? It measures the loudness of the left and right channels independently, and applies a positive gain to the softer channel — or a negative gain to the louder channel — in order to get the same loudness on both channels?
Thanks!

I'd like to know this as well. It's confusing to me how it is working, but I'm pretty dumb generally.

Does this have an "auto-mute" function ? I didn't notice on the plugin or in the manual. That could be a useful feature for people who don't have one built into their DAW.

My apologies, as this is an older thread, but would you ever consider adding that dynamic gain riding feature either as an option, or as a separate non-zero latency version of this plugin? I think your take on that kind off feature would be really cool!

Yeah, we'd love to tackle this at some point. I think it should probably be a fully separate plugin since we want to keep Loudness free, zero latency, and as lightweight as possible.

Every time I've used gain riding plugins in the past I've been disappointed, but perhaps that's all the more reason to test out our own

My thoughts, exactly!