Loudness Meter?

[cjunekim]

Hi

I've been experimenting with SWS extension's Loudness Analyzer/Normalizer to check LUFS of my tracks. It seemed to be great at first but I am disappointed. It seems to analyze the track's loudness pre-fx. I use compressors and limiters to adjust the level and dynamics but it is not reflected in the Loudness Analyzer's result. What I want is loudness post-fx.

Of course I can render the track and then analyze on it. However, it is unnecessarily slow.

Any ways to analyzing loudness post-fx in Reaper? Do I have to use a third-party plug-ins? Any recommendations? (BTW, my main work with reaper is podcast producing)

[trevlyns]

Sorry, have to state the obvious: is the analyser the last plugin in your train? If it's placed before compressors etc you would get the kind of results you mention.

[cjunekim]

Originally Posted by trevlyns

Sorry, have to state the obvious: is the analyser the last plugin in your train? If it's placed before compressors etc you would get the kind of results you mention.

I mean the Loudness Analyzer/Normalizer in the SWS extension kit. It is not a VST plug-in. You access it from "Extension" menu.

[bobobo]

you can examine loudness on items or tracks .. set it in the options

(not sure if it works. the results seem to be the same)

maybe it works best on stems

[nofish]

SWS loudness analysis is offline analysis, meaning it only works with existing files and not realtime FX.


If you want post-fx loudness analysis rather use a plugin, e.g
https://forum.cockos.com/showthread.php?t=140881

[heda]

Originally Posted by cjunekim

Of course I can render the track and then analyze on it. However, it is unnecessarily slow.

It's the opposite. Render is usually faster than real-time.
So render it to a new take or track. And use SWS loudness to analyse it. Overall time will be less than using a plugin and playback in real-time if it is a large item.

[karbomusic]

Originally Posted by heda

It's the opposite. Render is usually faster than real-time.
So render it to a new take or track. And use SWS loudness to analyse it. Overall time will be less than using a plugin and playback in real-time if it is a large item.

Correct, and the SWS extension is similar to what one would get with render (minus creating a new file) as it has to analyze/scan the entire item (which is still much faster than allowing the song to play through) meaning.... Real-time LUFs has the disadvantage that you need to allow the song to play from beginning to end, or the readout is useless for long-term/intergrated which is what many need it for.

It's fine to use in real-time for short term etc. but if one wants to meet some LUFS integrated target, it's better to render and use something like Orban Loudness Meter to get a true readout of what the render ends up being. What I do is spot check with something like YouLean loudness meter in real-time (loaded as a monitoring FX) but use Orban when I'm ready to Render in order to meet any "official" target LUFS.

[Bri1]

Any recommendations? (BTW, my main work with reaper is podcast producing)

Once you have final render-split into short sections--analyze each section separately--then simply heal the splits (do not move audio if no need to.)
You basically need a fast machine here> my older computer is also very very slow on whole renders.K?
=)

[skippertag]

Originally Posted by cjunekim

Hi

I've been experimenting with SWS extension's Loudness Analyzer/Normalizer to check LUFS of my tracks. It seemed to be great at first but I am disappointed. It seems to analyze the track's loudness pre-fx. I use compressors and limiters to adjust the level and dynamics but it is not reflected in the Loudness Analyzer's result. What I want is loudness post-fx.

Of course I can render the track and then analyze on it. However, it is unnecessarily slow.

Any ways to analyzing loudness post-fx in Reaper? Do I have to use a third-party plug-ins? Any recommendations? (BTW, my main work with reaper is podcast producing)

Hey!
You may want to try the free but great Youlean Loudness Meter
https://youlean.co/youlean-loudness-meter/