Wavelab is using v1.
And well, I created v2 - which currently is not widespread enough yet.
To specify, I basically wrote down the concept, that builds upon the specs of ITU-R BS.1770-x, in an understandable manner. I expanded on Mr Katz ideas and comments I got through mails, which gave me the inspiration of a logical evolution for music uses - he is still the sole creator of the K-System.
Funny enough, my “ideas” (loudness limits) were also picked up in AES discussions (I got wind of that from befriended engineers). Much like my ideas for the old “Dynamic Range Meter” (especially the “score sheet”) secretly sneaked into the official specs after having heavy contact with the developers. My ideas/logical thinking did even coincide with ideas from Apple and co with their planned/taken over “Replay Gain/Loudness Normalisation Schemes”. I only got to know this after I contacted the original EBU R-128 creators.
I even forwarded this concept to Steinberg at the time the R-128 metering plugin was still around. But I never got an answer, and there is also no presets existing in WL. Absolutely no problem on that end.
The only VST Plugin that actually took over the settings/concept in preset form is ToneBoosters EBU Loudness (Jeroen Breebaart). Eelco Grimm (Grimm Audio), Thomas Lund (tc.electronic), Tim Flohrer (zplane), Jon Schorah (Nugen Audio) and Dave Gamble (DMG Audio) know and read the white paper I wrote, even positively commented on the concept. Yet didn’t port “presets” since pretty much all of their tools can be setup independent. Ralph Kessler (Pinguin Ing.) and Bob Katz also know about this. Mister Katz even gave me a “silent agreement”, but both said that they don’t have time to read the papers. Though from a summary I gave them, they were like “interesting and logical thinking”.
BTW: I pretty much mentioned almost all of the “Music Loudness Alliance” staff in this paragraph, and also almost all of the original creators of the EBU R-128 spec!
The possibilities were already there with the ITU-R BS.1770.x specs… and it is a logical evolution of the LEQ, DR and K-System meters - pretty much also eliminates it’s major flaws. Just a “manual”/guide for musicians was missing.
Though granted, I still have to update this paper at some point since the original document still says “focus on MLk for music”, but in KVR Audio discussions, we debated and agreed on the issue to rather focus on SLk for music. Which did result in a better usability for loudness normalization.
Anyway…
v2 can be easily setup in Wavelab’s R-128 meter window (custom settings), though sometimes (really sporadic) I have an up to 1-2dB offset compared to other EBU R-128 meters I use. I filed this as bug report weeks ago already.
Summed up, v2 of the K-System is the following:
- ITU-R BS.1770-x specs are used (corrently we’re on 1770/3)
- custom reference levels (-20LUFS, -16LUFS, -14LUFS and -12LUFS - the last one for a “transition period”, K-20 is a compromise for those that don’t want to go to -16LUFS, which is somewhat stabbing at -18dBFS/0VU unweighted)
- custom color coding (-inf to -3LU = dark green, -3LU to 0LU = light green/hotspot/mezzoforte passages, 0LU to +3LU = amber zone/forte fortissimo passages only, +3LU and up = red zone, don’t go there)
For very dynamic musical content (orchestra), I even concepted a K-16v2 “Dynamic” preset, which uses:
Reference level - 16LUFS
color codes: -inf to -7LU/-23LUFS = dark green, -7LU to 0LU = light green/hotspot, 0LU to +3LU = amber zone/forte fortissimo passages, +3LU and up = red zone
This preset is basically for a “transition” from movie to music or (as mentioned), or simply orchestra material. The “light green area” is for the average signal ideally hovering around the -2LU to 0LU value.
So… yeah.
Should be simple to understand once you see it in action/have used it a couple of times
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Cross-Link to KVR Audio:
EBU R-128 meets K-System v2, a possible future for the loudness debate (the late pages are interesting the most)
my KVR Marks with even more thinking/comments about metering tools