selig wrote: ↑07 Jun 2018
Marco Raaphorst wrote: ↑07 Jun 2018
What do you think of this:
Imo this sounds great for a live band doing such complicated stuff. Sounds better than the album which is often the case for music imo. Live it sounds more lively and I love that. It's much about imperfections which are needed for art.
since Youlean is free, thought I'd pick it up and give it a spin, and try to understand what LU really means and if it has any use for me in my work.
First…The Youlean meter gives the live version (above ) an LU value of 2.3 LU compared to 3.8 LU for the version that started this thread…So you can have a "more lively" sounding track that has less dynamic range, according to what this meter is telling you.
What I see this meter showing is more about the loudest part of the song compared to the softest part. To test this I created a Thor sequence simply alternating between soft and loud noise bursts, and got an LU of 23! Didn't sound at all "dynamic" to me because it was just noise. But man can I get an impressive LU reading!
To test further, I got an LU of 5.1 for What's Going On, but only 2.0 if you just measure the beautiful and dynamic outro on it's own! In the same way you can get well over 5-6 LU just checking the intro of Lemon and Ice, even through it doesn't sound all that dynamic. Meaning the "dynamic" outro of What's Going On is 2 LU while the less dynamic intro of Lemon and Ice is 5 LU. What do we make of this? [probably not much, it's just a number]
On to Miles Davis, of course it's more dynamic because sometimes only one very quiet instrument is playing. However, looking at only the first sax solo on "So What", you get an LU of only 3.0 for 2 full minutes of "dynamic" classic jazz from the late 50s, to which you can say the Dutch Uncles track that started this thread is more "dynamic"! [But don't believe that for a minute, believe your ears] As expected, if you take the full 9+ minute track you get an LU of 10.8 (9.0 for most of the song until the very end).
Interestingly, when a commercial came on after "So What" played, we get whopping 11.7 LU on the meters, since while the commercial was flat-lined dynamically it was lower in overall level than the Miles Davis track so the meter says "more dynamic". What do we make of this? [again, not much, meters can be "fooled" just like our ears]
Like all meter types, they each open one window into the signal, and show one thing about the signal. How useful it is, and how accurate it is, can be argued and is contextual IMO. So as always it's about using the right tool for the job so you get the results that are meaningful to you at that point in time (according to what you're looking for).
Bottom line: "Loudness Range" is not really the same thing as "Dynamic Range" or "compression".
One definition is as follows:
Definition of loudness range: Loudness Range [Measured in LU (loudness Units)] will tell you the statistical measure of loudness variation of your entire track. This long-term reading will give you an idea of the difference in volume between the verse, chorus and other sections of your track.
https://www.pro-tools-expert.com/home-p ... ness-range
Some interesting graphics on that link, showing a totally compressed track can have a large LU value if there are a few soft parts between the "sausages". The point being, IMO, you can have a very compressed track that has a large LU, and a totally uncompressed track that has a low LU. It depends more (or at least as much) on how you arrange the long term dynamics of the music than it does how the track is recorded/mixed/mastered.
In other words, LU can tell you a lot, or it can tell you nothing about a track! As with any meter, use with caution and with INTENTION!