Mixing for podcasts, follow the loudness norm or not?

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Marco Raaphorst
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24 Apr 2017

A couple of weeks back I wrote something about loudness norms. See viewtopic.php?f=11&t=7499803

A discussion that confused me. Was I wrong in following the loudness norm for mixing documentaries? ...

Recently I found out that these norms for radio are now also given for those who are mixing podcasts, which is something I do. Read this AES document http://www.aes.org/technical/documents/ ... _15_10.pdf and read http://transom.org/2016/podcasting-basi ... -vs-radio/

What would you advice me to do? Follow these norms of the AES? Or follow what, for example Normen is saying: "bottom line is you don't need a R128 AT ALL, you just need to make a good mix and not crush it anymore because Wonderwall would sound louder on radio if you didn't."

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normen
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24 Apr 2017

My point was you don't need a R128 meter to mix. But if you publish your tracks and are the final instance you should very well set the level according to the R128 norm - but that can be done in one step, even without listening.

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Marco Raaphorst
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24 Apr 2017

normen wrote:My point was you don't need a R128 meter to mix. But if you publish your tracks and are the final instance you should very well set the level according to the R128 norm - but that can be done in one step, even without listening.
How can you make sure the voices are at -24 lufs? I guess that's when you need meters, right?

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normen
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24 Apr 2017

Marco Raaphorst wrote:How can you make sure the voices are at -24 lufs? I guess that's when you need meters, right?
Yeah but you don't even need to listen, you play the song, set the master volume and are good. I bet theres even standalone apps that you can feed your WAV to and it spits out one thats set to -24. And again, pretty much all player software for radio does that automatically.

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Marco Raaphorst
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24 Apr 2017

normen wrote:
Marco Raaphorst wrote:How can you make sure the voices are at -24 lufs? I guess that's when you need meters, right?
Yeah but you don't even need to listen, you play the song, set the master volume and are good. I bet theres even standalone apps that you can feed your WAV to and it spits out one thats set to -24. And again, pretty much all player software for radio does that automatically.
they put the whole file at -24 lufs, but we need the voices to be at -24 lufs. I can't see how this can be automated.

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normen
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24 Apr 2017

Marco Raaphorst wrote:they put the whole file at -24 lufs, but we need the voices to be at -24 lufs. I can't see how this can be automated.
Hm? No, you need your whole program to be at -24. If its segments (like talk - song - talk) then the separate segments need to be at -24

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Marco Raaphorst
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24 Apr 2017

The Transom document shows some examples how to make both a -24 lufs and -18 lufs file. They advice to mix first to -24 lufs and then use limiting to make the -18 lufs file. If you would do it the other way around the -24 lufs file would lack dynamics. Exactly what I brought up last time when thinking about loudness norms.

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Marco Raaphorst
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24 Apr 2017

normen wrote:
Marco Raaphorst wrote:they put the whole file at -24 lufs, but we need the voices to be at -24 lufs. I can't see how this can be automated.
Hm? No, you need your whole program to be at -24. If its segments (like talk - song - talk) then the separate segments need to be at -24
Yes but when you blend segments, voices with some music, things start to shift. So the trick is to keep the voices at -24 (-23 LUFS to be precise since we use that in Holland) as reference, right?

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normen
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24 Apr 2017

Marco Raaphorst wrote:Yes but when you blend segments, voices with some music, things start to shift. So the trick is to keep the voices at -24 (-23 LUFS to be precise since we use that in Holland) as reference, right?
Not really, the point of the R128 measuring system is that it integrates all these things and represents an AVERAGE of one music track, commercial, spoken discussion or whatever.

And about the use of a limiter for the -18 version... That only applies if your peaks actually go too high. In most cases the limiter wouldn't even start to attenuate.

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Marco Raaphorst
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25 Apr 2017

normen wrote:
Marco Raaphorst wrote:Yes but when you blend segments, voices with some music, things start to shift. So the trick is to keep the voices at -24 (-23 LUFS to be precise since we use that in Holland) as reference, right?
Not really, the point of the R128 measuring system is that it integrates all these things and represents an AVERAGE of one music track, commercial, spoken discussion or whatever.

And about the use of a limiter for the -18 version... That only applies if your peaks actually go too high. In most cases the limiter wouldn't even start to attenuate.
Thanks! I guess files which are already nicely compressed are the easiest to set at -24 or at -16 or -18 you name it, without hitting the limiter. So your statement "don't worry about it, just create a great sounding mix" I guess is right. So thanks!

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