Loudness Meter

The Loudness Meter is an audio meter for monitoring loudness, according to the EBU R-128 standard.

  • To open the Loudness Meter, select Meters > Loudness Meter.

  1. Momentary loudness bar

    Displays the loudness of a 400 milliseconds slice that is evaluated every 100 milliseconds.

  2. Short-term loudness bar

    Displays the loudness of a 3 seconds slice that is evaluated every second.

  3. Integrated loudness bar

    Displays the average loudness. This bar is evolving over time, because it makes an average of the loudness by measuring 400 millisecond slices every 100 milliseconds.

  4. Target loudness

    The purple vertical line corresponds to the target loudness defined in the Loudness Meter Settings dialog. The purple shadow around it corresponds to the acceptable deviation.

  5. EBU R-128 Loudness Range (LRA)

    This loudness range displays the difference between the estimates of the 10th and the 95th percentiles of the loudness distribution. The lower percentile of 10% can, for example, prevent the fade out of a music track from dominating the loudness range. The upper percentile of 95% ensures that an unusually loud sound, such as a gunshot in a movie, is not responsible for a large loudness range.

    The EBU R-128 loudness range, the dynamics range of the short-term loudness, and the dynamics range of the momentary loudness help to decide if dynamic compression is necessary, by giving instant feedback about the dynamics (too low, good, too much).

  6. Dynamics range of the short-term loudness

    This loudness range monitors the recent minimum/maximum loudness measurements to provide a hint about the short-term dynamics.

  7. Dynamics range of the momentary loudness

    This loudness range monitors the recent minimum/maximum loudness measurements to provide a hint about the momentary dynamics.

  8. Loudness curve

    This curve shows how the loudness is distributed in a song. The audio signal is divided into small blocks, and the loudness of each block is computed. The curve informs about how often audio events with a given loudness appear in the file in comparison to all other events. If the curve has a peak, the given loudness often appears in the song.

    The curve is always normalized. The peak shows which loudness is the most represented in a song. The curve is related to the LRA as the LRA starts at the left part of the curve and ends at the right part, with a 10%/95% tolerance.

  9. Gate LED

    The Gate LED lights up when audio is discarded from measurement. The EBU standard discards audio below a specific level, relative to the average loudness.

  10. Numerical values of the bars

    This section shows the numerical values of the bars. The values in brackets are the loudness ranges.

  11. True Peak LED

    The True Peak LED is based on a true peak analysis and lights up when clipping is detected.