Waves has released WLM Loudness Meter, a new plug-in that provides precision loudness measurement and metering for broadcast, movie trailers, games, packaged media and more.

Fully SoundGrid-compatible and compliant with all current ITU, EBU and ATSC specifications, the WLM offers comprehensive Momentary, Short Term, Long Term, and True Peak readouts, plus a unique warning and logging system that keeps track of your levels, and lets you know when you've exceeded them—or fallen short. Ideal for content creators and post production houses as well as cable head-end facilities, WLM is an affordable, all-in-one cross-platform, multi-format loudness metering software solution.

Features:

• ITU, EBU and ATSC compliant.
• Foreground, dialog, and average loudness measurements.
• Momentary, Short Term, Long Term, and True Peak readouts.
• Intelligent dialog sensor detects and measures speech.
• Mono, stereo, and 5.1 components.

Multi-Format Metering

Measurement Methods:

• EBU uses foreground audio as the loudness anchor.
• LM1 measures and averages loudness across the whole program.
• DIAL uses dialog as the loudness anchor, measuring and averaging loudness only when dialog is detected.

Measurement Standards:

• ITU-R BS.1770-2.
• EBU R-128.
• ATSC A/85.

Time Scales:

• Momentary.
• Short Term.
• Long Term.
• True Peak.

Weighting:

• ITU-R B.S.1770 – K-Weighting.
• Leq(a).
• Leq(b).
• Leq(c).
• Leq(m).

Controls:

• Short Term displays (in LUFS) perceived short term loudness.
• Long Term displays (in LUFS) perceived loudness averaged across the program signal.
• Range displays (in LU) the overall loudness range across the program signal that.
• Momentary displays (in LUFS) momentary loudness levels, according to the Momentary scale control settings.
• True Peak displays (in dBTP) inter-sample peaks which do not register in the sample data but may occur during reproduction of the digital signal.
• Unders displays the number of times the signal goes below the specified Short Term Min value indicated in the settings panel.
• Overs displays the number of times the signal exceeds the specified Short Term Max value indicated in the settings panel.
• Measurements Play/Pause determines if program loudness is registered in the WLM memory for averaging long term loudness range.
• Follow Transport determines if measurement starts and stops according to host application transport controls.
• Timer indicates the amount of time measurements have been taken and integrated.
• Reset resets the Long Term, Range, Overs and Unders counters and returns the integration timer to 00:00:00.
• Method determines the measurement method.
• Weighting determines the type of weighting filter.
• Channel determines the channels being measured.
• Short Term Max determines the maximum short term level.
• Short Term Min determines the minimum short term level.
• True Peak Max determines the maximum true peak level.
• Target sets the target level reference.
• Custom Pre Filtering provides low pass (LPF) and high pass (HPF) filters that pre-filter the audio prior to loudness measurement.
• Momentary Scale determines the scale displayed in the momentary bar meter.
• Logging displays CSV logging file options.

Pricing & Availability

WLM is Native, SoundGrid compatible, available separately and in Waves Mercury, and requires iLok authorization. Mercury V8 owners covered by Waves Update Plan receive WLM at no additional charge.

MSRP is $400 but it is currently available for $299. As with all Waves plug-ins it's available for Windows and Mac OS X in VST, VST3, AU and RTAS plug-in formats.