Loudness track - add Peak

This came up in another thread and I think this could be a good thing to have.

In addition to writing a loudness curve it’d be very useful to write True Peak as well. I know that this would be a lot of values and perhaps it could be writing overs only indicated by a vertical red line or something.

So imagine that if one is working on for example a long-form show, say a 1hr show, and one is done with a first pass of mixing and wants to see if there are any foreseeable issues. The off-line processing would tell us if loudness is off of course, but would currently not tell us where the peak-overs are. So for anyone who doesn’t want to rely on slapping a brickwall limiter on the output this would be a great addition I think. One could quickly scan this track for the offending peaks, redo automation and tweak to avoid the peak, and move on.

It’s easy to mix and simply look away for a second or close your eyes or whatever, and then see a red clip indicator and have to backtrack several minutes to find out just where that occurred.

Anybody with me?

Hello,

yes, that seems to be a logical approach. We’ll extend the “Loudness features” within the Nuendo 6 lifecycle anyway. Such an addition could be useful, however, we need to check the amount of work needed for realization.

Thanks,
Timo

I think this is a very good idea. The loudness track could have various layers that can be quick-selected. In addition to the LUFS there might be a layer with the peaks, where we could set a threshold value above which the line is being drawn in red.

Another approach would be a custom integral time setting for the loudness curve; the default should be if set to EBU128, but if we could also set it to 0 samples, this would actually be peak, not?

I kind of see the point in having adjustable metering, but the whole point of standard loudness measurements is that they’re standard. If we change integration time it’s no longer conforming to the standard. If anything I’d like to see an alternative BS.1770-1/2/3 reading. I think one of them is pretty much equal to RS128 so it’s really only for backwards compatibility.

But at any rate I think the objection I have is that people will be tempted to mess around with their “loudness” algorithm and risk end up with not loudness, as opposed to simply having non-adjustable measurements that are clearly labeled so everyone knows what they’re looking at.

Know what I mean?

+1 on the Useful scale.

If it’s any easier, you could implement it the way Bias Peak did for years: a menu (or contextual menu) pick that says “Go to Peak Level”. Since there’s usually only one loudest peak in a file, it’d take you there and you could do the appropriate editing… then call the function again, and get the second-loudest…

If there are more than one loudest peak at the same level, it’ll take you to the first one. As far as the user is concerned, operation would be exactly identical since the next call would take you to the next peak.

(If the whole file has been recorded at almost FS and there are a ton of peaks, reiterating the command might only move you a few samples later. The user will learn to be more careful next time…)

+1 on peak view on the loudness track

it will be a great upgrade of this tool, when you’re at the loudness level (-23lu) on a long program and your tp is at -2.6 instead of -3dbtp (french norm) searching for the track that is bothering you can be a pain. it will be very usefull to see vertical red bars on the loudness track for each peak superior to -3dbtp.

+1 brilliant

+1

Niek/ Amsterdam

+1 on the BS.1770.3

If Steinberg is using the latest revision of R-128 it will be BS 1770-3 compliant.

Hello,

thanks for your feedback. I can confirm that True Peak indication on Loudness Track will
be available in Nuendo 6.5.

Thanks,
Timo