Too much master buss saturation

[Marco Raaphorst]

I am using Youlean Loudness Meter and refer to Loudness Range for dynamic range.

And you can see how pointless those values are in practice…


I'm curious how the two tracks I compared "measure" according to these tools?

My bad: Loudness Range is between short term and short term max if I am correct now

Those values are useful though. They tell you what you're hearing.

[Marco Raaphorst]

Talking about limited dynamic range. A lot is between 3 and 4 db. Even older stuff like Miss Elliot Supa Dupa Fly which sounds totally killer.

This has an even smaller range:

But it also sounds fantastic imo.

As does the very old Blue in Green by Miles Davis. But that one has more dynamics. It's all reference stuff for me.

Interesting, you can't make a rule out of this. It sounds good if it sound good

I can only assume you’re not using your ears to determine dynamic range, but using some numeric algorithm? Because the Latin Playboys has so much space between the notes, while the original example has none, that I cannot hear them as being in any way similar. What am I missing here with comparing these two examples?


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No, both examples are not very dynamic, Playboys even less dynamic. It sounds compact, like the Dutch Uncles but yet the Playboys sound way better, more lively frequencies. Uncles have too much happening in the same range.

Dynamics is only one part of the game I guess. But I guess we love extremely limited range in general for modern music.

[jimmyklane]

Cassette decks are a really fun way to get compression and distortion. I still have a cassette deck in the racks, and I’ve modded the machine to record/play at 4x it’s normal 1.875 IPS....which is going to completely destroy the heads sooner rather than later, but it sounds really cool on synths when you record with Dolby A on and playback with it off! Cassette tends to give my outright distortion on drums, which, when done in parallel sounds really good....however, cassette tape transport systems simply have too much wow and flutter to make a parallel path feasible (for me)...

Cassette recorders often have a really cool limiter though, which never wears out - I've got a producer friend that always records the output from an old crappy cassette recorder when tracking drums. The device usually just sits on the floor by the drums and sounds like the end of the world - mixed in a low levels it's an impressive effect (but you didn't hear that from me!).

I am not sure if it’s an input limiter or simply the input buffer opamp clipping!!! Something I’ve done (my deck is a 3-head so this may be easier for me, not sure) is to use one of the old school “tape with a cable attached” that was designed to let you play your portable CD player in your cassette-deck-only car. Remember those?

Well, I take the fake tape and NOW I can use the input saturation, the core saturation of the “transformer” formed when we go from tape head to the magnetic pickup in the fake tape, and the NR companding circuit, which I’m sure also has its own clipping sound. The results are drastically different based upon how far you are from 0dBu (or at least 0 on the VU meters on the deck) because the NR (on my deck) is meant to function with 0dB peaks. Over that and you get decoding errors, too far under and you get more noise than you’d have with no NR.

[jimmyklane]

Back to the topic:

So is the consensus that this is a combination of way too much brickwall limiting and clipping in the MP3 decoder? I very much do not believe this sounds like tape....professional, semi-pro, or cassette. The transients are GONE. Tape won’t usually do that until it’s in hard clipping itself, which has a different sound to my ears than this album....I should say first minute of the first song, because I did not want to listen any longer.

[selig]

And you can see how pointless those values are in practice…


I'm curious how the two tracks I compared "measure" according to these tools?

My bad: Loudness Range is between short term and short term max if I am correct now

Those values are useful though. They tell you what you're hearing.

I would counter argue that no one needs to be told what they are hearing!

[selig]

Cassette recorders often have a really cool limiter though, which never wears out - I've got a producer friend that always records the output from an old crappy cassette recorder when tracking drums. The device usually just sits on the floor by the drums and sounds like the end of the world - mixed in a low levels it's an impressive effect (but you didn't hear that from me!).

I am not sure if it’s an input limiter or simply the input buffer opamp clipping!!! Something I’ve done (my deck is a 3-head so this may be easier for me, not sure) is to use one of the old school “tape with a cable attached” that was designed to let you play your portable CD player in your cassette-deck-only car. Remember those?

Well, I take the fake tape and NOW I can use the input saturation, the core saturation of the “transformer” formed when we go from tape head to the magnetic pickup in the fake tape, and the NR companding circuit, which I’m sure also has its own clipping sound. The results are drastically different based upon how far you are from 0dBu (or at least 0 on the VU meters on the deck) because the NR (on my deck) is meant to function with 0dB peaks. Over that and you get decoding errors, too far under and you get more noise than you’d have with no NR.

If you heard it you would recognize the limiter attempting to prevent the opamp clipping - so to be fair it's both, but the sound that makes it cool is the pumping/breathing of the poor limiter being pummeled by the drums (these recorders more often expect speech as an input, not drums).

[jimmyklane]

I am not sure if it’s an input limiter or simply the input buffer opamp clipping!!! Something I’ve done (my deck is a 3-head so this may be easier for me, not sure) is to use one of the old school “tape with a cable attached” that was designed to let you play your portable CD player in your cassette-deck-only car. Remember those?

Well, I take the fake tape and NOW I can use the input saturation, the core saturation of the “transformer” formed when we go from tape head to the magnetic pickup in the fake tape, and the NR companding circuit, which I’m sure also has its own clipping sound. The results are drastically different based upon how far you are from 0dBu (or at least 0 on the VU meters on the deck) because the NR (on my deck) is meant to function with 0dB peaks. Over that and you get decoding errors, too far under and you get more noise than you’d have with no NR.

If you heard it you would recognize the limiter attempting to prevent the opamp clipping - so to be fair it's both, but the sound that makes it cool is the pumping/breathing of the poor limiter being pummeled by the drums (these recorders more often expect speech as an input, not drums).

OH!!! You mean the little dictation machines! Not a “professional” deck. Yeah, those are killer, I’ve heard the sound you speak of it’s like a LevelLoc in front of the input.

Interesting that the iPhone does the exact same thing without any tape gooeyness....it’s like a really compressed talkback mic.

[selig]

I can only assume you’re not using your ears to determine dynamic range, but using some numeric algorithm? Because the Latin Playboys has so much space between the notes, while the original example has none, that I cannot hear them as being in any way similar. What am I missing here with comparing these two examples?


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No, both examples are not very dynamic, Playboys even less dynamic. It sounds compact, like the Dutch Uncles but yet the Playboys sound way better, more lively frequencies. Uncles have too much happening in the same range.

Dynamics is only one part of the game I guess. But I guess we love extremely limited range in general for modern music.

I guess we should clarify terms because I'm confused by your response.

Maybe you're talking long term dynamics? I'm talking short term dynamics, which can be seen in the Latin Playboys as the space between the transients and which is totally obliterated in the Dutch Uncles example (by what we are all assuming is brick wall limiting and possibly other crap as well).

In other words, one has the entire dynamic range reduced to nearly zero, zilch, nada, while the other still has tons of dynamic range between each transient. It can be heard clearly IMO as "space" between the notes in the Latin Playboys, while in the Dutch Uncle example there's no space left for anything. It's like the LP track is still breathing in/out, but the DU example is just one big exhale!

I'm attempting to describe why I enjoy the LP sound but not so much the DU sound, and the visual is the best way I can think of to do so!
It's the "space" between the notes where the level is allowed to drop many decibels, as opposed to a mix where there is no such drop between transients.

Screen Shot 2018-06-06 at 8.32.06 AM.png (441 KiB) Viewed 2145 times

To me even more specific, the difference between the peaks and the space between the notes in the LP track is almost 30 dB. The difference between the peak and the space between the notes in the DU track is only 4 dB! HUGE difference, which is a form of "dynamic range" IMO.

[selig]

If you heard it you would recognize the limiter attempting to prevent the opamp clipping - so to be fair it's both, but the sound that makes it cool is the pumping/breathing of the poor limiter being pummeled by the drums (these recorders more often expect speech as an input, not drums).

OH!!! You mean the little dictation machines! Not a “professional” deck. Yeah, those are killer, I’ve heard the sound you speak of it’s like a LevelLoc in front of the input.

Interesting that the iPhone does the exact same thing without any tape gooeyness....it’s like a really compressed talkback mic.

Yea, my bad - I meant to say "micro-cassette", and while it is "professional" for it's intended application, it's not a "cassette" recorder (and definitely not a "deck"!).

[jimmyklane]

I knew exactly what you meant as soon as I thought about “laying it in front of the drum kit”!

[Marco Raaphorst]

Back to the topic:

So is the consensus that this is a combination of way too much brickwall limiting and clipping in the MP3 decoder? I very much do not believe this sounds like tape....professional, semi-pro, or cassette. The transients are GONE. Tape won’t usually do that until it’s in hard clipping itself, which has a different sound to my ears than this album....I should say first minute of the first song, because I did not want to listen any longer.

1. not sure if it's brickwall because I can't find squared peaks. no clipped bits either. so it is definitely smoothed. soft clip. I thought tape, but it might be simulation. and also a lot on the vocals which is not coming from the master buss because if so the drums and bass would be way more affected that it is now.

2. and no it is not mp3 decoder errors since the peak is at -7 db (see my screenshot of Youlean measuring). doesn't sound like it either. clipped bits sound like clipped bits. hard clips.

[Marco Raaphorst]

No, both examples are not very dynamic, Playboys even less dynamic. It sounds compact, like the Dutch Uncles but yet the Playboys sound way better, more lively frequencies. Uncles have too much happening in the same range.

Dynamics is only one part of the game I guess. But I guess we love extremely limited range in general for modern music.

I guess we should clarify terms because I'm confused by your response.

Maybe you're talking long term dynamics? I'm talking short term dynamics, which can be seen in the Latin Playboys as the space between the transients and which is totally obliterated in the Dutch Uncles example (by what we are all assuming is brick wall limiting and possibly other crap as well).

In other words, one has the entire dynamic range reduced to nearly zero, zilch, nada, while the other still has tons of dynamic range between each transient. It can be heard clearly IMO as "space" between the notes in the Latin Playboys, while in the Dutch Uncle example there's no space left for anything. It's like the LP track is still breathing in/out, but the DU example is just one big exhale!

I'm attempting to describe why I enjoy the LP sound but not so much the DU sound, and the visual is the best way I can think of to do so!
It's the "space" between the notes where the level is allowed to drop many decibels, as opposed to a mix where there is no such drop between transients.
Screen Shot 2018-06-06 at 8.32.06 AM.png

To me even more specific, the difference between the peaks and the space between the notes in the LP track is almost 30 dB. The difference between the peak and the space between the notes in the DU track is only 4 dB! HUGE difference, which is a form of "dynamic range" IMO.

Yes the DU is a more busy arrangement compared to the LP song.

If I am correct the Youlean measuring system compares Short Term amount to the Short Term Maximum and calls this Loudness Range. For both songs the Loudness Range is just a few db which is less than more of the dynamic old stuff.

The Loudness Range of LP is even less than the DU version. So in modern terms using these new LUFS system the LP has even less dynamics than the DU. Not saying it sounds worse, just saying that it is a very much compressed track.

[nickb523]

This stage it up to the artist. Both bands are pretty big and well established, so it's not my place to comment on the choices they make. Art and current trends creep in at every stage.

Mastering is a service industry. The end product is always dictated by the artist(s) in session.

Nick

[selig]

I guess we should clarify terms because I'm confused by your response.

Maybe you're talking long term dynamics? I'm talking short term dynamics, which can be seen in the Latin Playboys as the space between the transients and which is totally obliterated in the Dutch Uncles example (by what we are all assuming is brick wall limiting and possibly other crap as well).

In other words, one has the entire dynamic range reduced to nearly zero, zilch, nada, while the other still has tons of dynamic range between each transient. It can be heard clearly IMO as "space" between the notes in the Latin Playboys, while in the Dutch Uncle example there's no space left for anything. It's like the LP track is still breathing in/out, but the DU example is just one big exhale!

I'm attempting to describe why I enjoy the LP sound but not so much the DU sound, and the visual is the best way I can think of to do so!
It's the "space" between the notes where the level is allowed to drop many decibels, as opposed to a mix where there is no such drop between transients.
Screen Shot 2018-06-06 at 8.32.06 AM.png

To me even more specific, the difference between the peaks and the space between the notes in the LP track is almost 30 dB. The difference between the peak and the space between the notes in the DU track is only 4 dB! HUGE difference, which is a form of "dynamic range" IMO.

Yes the DU is a more busy arrangement compared to the LP song.

If I am correct the Youlean measuring system compares Short Term amount to the Short Term Maximum and calls this Loudness Range. For both songs the Loudness Range is just a few db which is less than more of the dynamic old stuff.

The Loudness Range of LP is even less than the DU version. So in modern terms using these new LUFS system the LP has even less dynamics than the DU. Not saying it sounds worse, just saying that it is a very much compressed track.

Not saying which one sounds worse (still a little confused)?

I’m not talking about the arrangement, though I guess you cannot separate the two (arrangement and sound).

I’m just surprise the two tracks measure so similarly and yet sound so radically different compression wise. I’ve not been convinced the current loudness tools are as close as they need to be to how our ears hear, especially considering this radical example.

Or to put it more simply, I don’t hear much obvious compression on the LP track (as the waveform view confirms), but that’s all I hear on the DU track!

Very interesting discussion, all!
[emoji3]


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[normen]

I think what Marco is saying is that these meters actually try to measure the amount of compression, not the general dynamic range / crest factor of the mix. I guess it's basically looking at the crest factor of a moving window with a short duration.

And I guess what Selig is saying is that a track that is only a cow bell on every 4th will ALWAYS have a higher dynamic range than a track where you have a constant wall of sound from 10 guitars, no matter the compression. Because there is simply NOTHING between those cow bell hits.

[aeox]

Every song sounds too busy IMO. There is absolutely no "focus". It's just a wall of noise constantly!

[aeox]

Still better than all my mixes though.

[selig]

I think what Marco is saying is that these meters actually try to measure the amount of compression, not the general dynamic range / crest factor of the mix. I guess it's basically looking at the crest factor of a moving window with a short duration.

And I guess what Selig is saying is that a track that is only a cow bell on every 4th will ALWAYS have a higher dynamic range than a track where you have a constant wall of sound from 10 guitars, no matter the compression. Because there is simply NOTHING between those cow bell hits.

Maybe I’m misunderstanding what these meters are trying to measure (they are failing if they say the tracks are similar IMO), but I struggle understanding how one can measure the amount of compression if all you have is an already compressed track! This is logically because you do not know what the original file (before compression) sounded like.

If I give you TWO tracks, one compressed, and one not compressed, you can attempt to measure the difference and try to extrapolate from that what amount of compression the second track has applied to it.

Otherwise, I’m going to guess I’ve misunderstood something at a very basic level here - I’ve certainly missed the point of such metering if it cannot distinguish between the amount of compression on these two tracks…



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[jimmyklane]

Still better than all my mixes though.

I haven’t heard your mixes, but the OPs example is a fairly awful final result. Arrangement matters a lot, inasmuch as if you’ve got, say, a guitar solo and a lead vocal going at the same time you’re going to have a difficult time mixing it so that both are crystal clear. Hence the same advice you’ve seen on YT, read in magazines, and heard on forums.... make sure the kick and bass have room for each other (one holds down the true bottom of the mix), make sure that if there are competing midrange elements that you give them space both deep and wide (i.e. EQ, panning, and reverb/delay) and know that you won’t be too far off the mark if your AVERAGED OVER TIME frequency spectrum is somewhere close to the 3dB/octave falloff of pink noise. That’s much easier to say than to do, but in general you can avoid nasty side effects like this and still have your music at a healthy level if you’ve got things controlled at the source/channel level.

[normen]

I think what Marco is saying is that these meters actually try to measure the amount of compression, not the general dynamic range / crest factor of the mix. I guess it's basically looking at the crest factor of a moving window with a short duration.

And I guess what Selig is saying is that a track that is only a cow bell on every 4th will ALWAYS have a higher dynamic range than a track where you have a constant wall of sound from 10 guitars, no matter the compression. Because there is simply NOTHING between those cow bell hits.

Maybe I’m misunderstanding what these meters are trying to measure (they are failing if they say the tracks are similar IMO), but I struggle understanding how one can measure the amount of compression if all you have is an already compressed track! This is logically because you do not know what the original file (before compression) sounded like.

If I give you TWO tracks, one compressed, and one not compressed, you can attempt to measure the difference and try to extrapolate from that what amount of compression the second track has applied to it.

Otherwise, I’m going to guess I’ve misunderstood something at a very basic level here - I’ve certainly missed the point of such metering if it cannot distinguish between the amount of compression on these two tracks…



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Well I know as much as you do - I was going from what Marco said. But if you had to decide if it was compressed or not what would you do? Obviously listen but we both know that you can make a compressor pretty unobtrusive. So whats next? You look at the changes in the waveform within one vocal line or guitar part, right? If it has lots of peaks theres probably not much compression. Still the track might be very dynamic or not, depending on the instruments.

So what did you do to find that out? You looked only at that blob where the vocals or guitars are and ignored the rest of the track. So my guess is that thats what these meters do in some way (if Marco is right).

And I would do it similarly to how I explained before, RMS with a short window, maybe even make that window size dependent on the general dynamic range from the track. I.e. if it's only a cow bell the window would be short so that it basically only looks at one hit. If it's a vocal track with bass and guitar it will have a longer window and look at maybe a few words.

[Marco Raaphorst]

I think what Marco is saying is that these meters actually try to measure the amount of compression, not the general dynamic range / crest factor of the mix. I guess it's basically looking at the crest factor of a moving window with a short duration.

And I guess what Selig is saying is that a track that is only a cow bell on every 4th will ALWAYS have a higher dynamic range than a track where you have a constant wall of sound from 10 guitars, no matter the compression. Because there is simply NOTHING between those cow bell hits.

Maybe I’m misunderstanding what these meters are trying to measure (they are failing if they say the tracks are similar IMO), but I struggle understanding how one can measure the amount of compression if all you have is an already compressed track! This is logically because you do not know what the original file (before compression) sounded like.

If I give you TWO tracks, one compressed, and one not compressed, you can attempt to measure the difference and try to extrapolate from that what amount of compression the second track has applied to it.

Otherwise, I’m going to guess I’ve misunderstood something at a very basic level here - I’ve certainly missed the point of such metering if it cannot distinguish between the amount of compression on these two tracks…



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Meters can be tricky. IMO in most cases your ears are the best guide but the meters come in handy for some situation. Although LUFS is an improvement over RMS, it's still not there. For example when I am mixing spoken word and trying to get the vocals on the same level, a voice with more low end might LOOK lower in volume if I check the meters compared to a more midrangy sounding voice. But are ears tend to believe that a voice with more low end is speaking closer to us than a voice lacking low end and so our brains thinks the low sounding voice is louder even when it's not.

What these meters are telling is the average in loudness range, which imo are the dynamics in a piece of audio. In these example both songs are compressed like most modern music. Not as dynamic if you compare it for example to older stuff like Motown. It's 3 db of loudness range compared to 7 db or more for Motown, or 10 db or more for jazz. But use your ears, I guess you understand what I am saying.

But it does proof that the meters of YouLean are great for showing dynamic range. Jazz has more dynamic range compared to pop music. And the meter will tell you this straight away. You ears will also tell you this. So that's a match.

So I would say both tracks use more compression than the old stuff like Motown. But maybe I should say: these track have limited dynamic range. I hear this in LP as well. Sounds great, but doesn't sound as dynamic as Kind of Blue or What's Going On for example. It's a decision. It sounds more controlled.

It is hard to use the word compression maybe because so much sounds we use are already compressed. Drumloops for example. If you would put these loudly in the mix you get a dull track imo. But I know not everyone agrees. In my opinion the old Motown stuff sound more lively than modern music which often sounds too "compact", too restricted, to limited in range, too constant. Back in the day stuff was more random, if you understand what I mean? But that's just old versus new. I am not saying it is better, but I prefer in general a lively track. It's not about perfection (those imo idiotic modern tricks of using pink noise to make all channels as loud!) it's about emotion. What it does to me. Well when I hear Marvin Gaye's voice upfront and the drums in the background, well... I LOVE that. Maybe modern people will say that the drums are way to low in the mix for that track but I don't agree.

I also realise that today a lot of people are still mixing like in the old days. There's such a lot of music. So it's maybe a bit tricky to generalise, which I also am doing here.

But still, that saturation going on in the DU track is a bit strange. I believe that happend mostly during mixing (vocals are saturated) then during mastering. Just guessing I guess.

[Marco Raaphorst]

Still better than all my mixes though.

I haven’t heard your mixes, but the OPs example is a fairly awful final result. Arrangement matters a lot, inasmuch as if you’ve got, say, a guitar solo and a lead vocal going at the same time you’re going to have a difficult time mixing it so that both are crystal clear. Hence the same advice you’ve seen on YT, read in magazines, and heard on forums.... make sure the kick and bass have room for each other (one holds down the true bottom of the mix), make sure that if there are competing midrange elements that you give them space both deep and wide (i.e. EQ, panning, and reverb/delay) and know that you won’t be too far off the mark if your AVERAGED OVER TIME frequency spectrum is somewhere close to the 3dB/octave falloff of pink noise. That’s much easier to say than to do, but in general you can avoid nasty side effects like this and still have your music at a healthy level if you’ve got things controlled at the source/channel level.

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.

[djadalaide]

When i said too loud.. I meant the volume was up to about double that of other tracks i compared to - so RMS not peak. Maybe thats a spotify thing.

[jimmyklane]

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.

From a quick listen of the song on my iPhone (through which I can infer quite a lot tbh)

I think that,
A: I love the song and it was executed really well....right band, good song.
B: Drummer a timing machine like Neal Peart!
C: The TV mixer knew what he was doing....notice that the snare has a fairly heavy compressor on it, and so do the vocals and bass, but if there is a compressor and limiter setup on the 2-buss, it is not making itself obvious to me.

EDIT: took a listen on the trusty Sony MDR-7506 cans, which I know well. Kick/Snare have a strong compressor on them, vocal has something that is heavy but fairly invisible (A good opto [think LA2A] usually fits this bill) the bass sounds like it’s been locked down, but still sounds great, and everything else is pretty open and clear sounding! The station itself will have a “signature” which means pre-broadcast processing, but honestly I have no IDEA if TV does the whole “smash/phase rotate/smash/limit” chain of normal FM radio (to maximize coverage area and sound competitive I guess)
Maybe somebody knows the typical digital TV standards in the UK?

[selig]

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!