Loudness, The ITU and LUFS

Explain the difference between the momentary and integrated readings of the Loudness meter

Momentary readings on a loudness meter just show the peak rate at any given moment, essentially a fleeting second of it hitting that level, while the integrated reading gives an overall average level reading of the recording which takes all the levels into account.

2. What was the reason behind the ITU developing the new LUFS scheme?

Provide a consistent way to measure loudness and guidelines for broadcast, important on regulating the volume level on adverts so that the level is normalised with that of the program that is showing.

3. Which measurement tells us most about the loudness of a piece of music? Peak or RMS –

RMS tells us the most as it is the average response figures of loudness

4. What is the reason behind the integrated response being slower than the momentary response?

Integrated response being slower then momentary due to it giving a reading of average of the entire song, so it doesn’t respond to peak moments of the recording and only slowly raises or lowers to the peak level based upon the average over the course of the song.

5. Why is the integrated response important for broadcast?

This sets the level of the sounds loudness so if something is too high it is brought down to -23db and if too low (older classical) that is below -23db then this would be brought up, A normalisation of the sound levels so that nothing is out of balance.

6. What is the significance of -23dB?

US and EU broadcast conformance level for the average loudness level.

7. How has the loudness level and dynamic range of various music genres changed over the past few decades?

Classical music’s dynamic range and loudness was mastered at a lower loudness of around -20dbfs with a dynamic range down to -40dbfs, while the move into 80’s pop meant the loudness was set at around 14dbfs while the dynamic range was reduced to -28dbfs. Onto todays era of mastering we have the loudness set at around 8dbfs pushing the levels higher to the cliff while the dynamic range is reduced even further to just 16dbfs.

8. What is the implication for the Loudness Wars?

Meaning that loudness on all albums could well be mastered at the exact same level and the loudness wars will be over, since we wouldn’t feel compelled to push the limits of loudness right up to the clipping range