Voxengo SPAN 3.0 FFT spectrum analyzer plugin released

[kylie]

I don't think SPAN was only created to get potential customers to access his website. It seems it just turned out to attract them more than he expected, so he keeps it free and enjoys the benefit of some advertising he had to pay for otherwise. Obviously it is a significant amount so that it would be unwise from a economical point of view not to give SPAN some free treatment. Furthermore there is SPAN Plus that should benefit from development as well. And, if it was really a decoy we could still enjoy it

[juhhie]

Is there going to be EBU R128 / LUFS metering in SPAN? Seeing as the old RMS-based metering is becoming obsolete.

[Aleksey Vaneev]

I think what he means is it would cost $800 per month to pay for advertising to get 4000 visitors to the site.

this

[Aleksey Vaneev]

Is there going to be EBU R128 / LUFS metering in SPAN? Seeing as the old RMS-based metering is becoming obsolete.

Isn't LUFS is basically the same as DBFS except for some additional filtering applied during loudness estimation? I'm not really convinced it's necessary at all, don't want to promote something I'm not really into. I may be wrong, but EBU R128 sounds like a thing pushed by bureaucrats to somehow reduce the problem of loudness variation in program material. I personally think it will make the overcompression problem even more severe: if somebody limits your loudness you'll want to overcome this by reducing dynamics, using more piercing sounds, ways to cheat the LUFS scheme.

[softska]

Is there going to be EBU R128 / LUFS metering in SPAN? Seeing as the old RMS-based metering is becoming obsolete.

Isn't LUFS is basically the same as DBFS except for some additional filtering applied during loudness estimation? I'm not really convinced it's necessary at all, don't want to promote something I'm not really into. I may be wrong, but EBU R128 sounds like a thing pushed by bureaucrats to somehow reduce the problem of loudness variation in program material. I personally think it will make the overcompression problem even more severe: if somebody limits your loudness you'll want to overcome this by reducing dynamics, using more piercing sounds, ways to cheat the LUFS scheme.

IIRC it's 3 values (integrated/momentary/shorterm) + some gating that take into account of sudden drop for integrated value.

As SPAN+ owner I wish it will be at least considered for the paid version. It's probably not so useful for mixing music, but for dealing with mastering program material it's nice/required to have (e.g. for me, mostly for mastering to target level for online videos content) I load another LUFS meter to read it, but would be nice to have it inside SPAN.

[da10us]

Is there going to be EBU R128 / LUFS metering in SPAN? Seeing as the old RMS-based metering is becoming obsolete.

Isn't LUFS is basically the same as DBFS except for some additional filtering applied during loudness estimation? I'm not really convinced it's necessary at all, don't want to promote something I'm not really into. I may be wrong, but EBU R128 sounds like a thing pushed by bureaucrats to somehow reduce the problem of loudness variation in program material. I personally think it will make the overcompression problem even more severe: if somebody limits your loudness you'll want to overcome this by reducing dynamics, using more piercing sounds, ways to cheat the LUFS scheme.

I like EBU scales because of the coloring (in Cubase). Because I use both SPAN and the Studio monitoring of Cubase a lot I tried to make them the same. I noticed it wasn't easy to get peak and RMS values the same for both. If I'm correct only when SPAN is in +3dBFS and Cubase in dBFS the metering for peak and RMS is the same. K-metering seems to be always different.

What I try to say is that it would be nice to have metering calibrated between different vendors. At least with popular DAW meters. Don't know if it's worth the work or even possible.

[camsr]

Thanks for another update!

Why did you remove the groups selection from the edit menu? I think this new way will be slower to operate.

[MogwaiBoy]

+1 it would be great to have LUFS metering as I favour it over RMS readouts now. I have a target range (-10 to -13 LUFS integrated) that I aim for with my masters. The best way for me though is to still use RX5 standalone application and it analyses the whole track or section within seconds.

The EBU 128 standard however is pretty useless to anyone outside the TV/film industry. -23 LUFS is restrictively quiet. Though music I/we make does end up in film and TV... they can pull down the volume and normalise it themselves, and they do. EBU128 is more for normalising volumes between adverts/shows etc without annoying the viewers.

So anyway LUFS metering would be handy but don't care about EBU128.

And thanks Voxengo : )

[dreamvoid]

may be wrong, but EBU R128 sounds like a thing pushed by bureaucrats to somehow reduce the problem of loudness variation in program material. I personally think it will make the overcompression problem even more severe: if somebody limits your loudness you'll want to overcome this by reducing dynamics, using more piercing sounds, ways to cheat the LUFS scheme.

As far as I understand it, it is all about bringing (over)compressed and dynamic material to an equal loudness situation. It is not about limiting loudness but LESS limiting and compression of dynamic audio. Overcompressed material gets 'punished'. The higher you compress the program material the lower the perceived loudness in teh end with a R128 regulated playback.

[Aleksey Vaneev]

Thanks for another update!

Why did you remove the groups selection from the edit menu? I think this new way will be slower to operate.

You can enable this bottom group selector, it is switchable via the settings window.

[Aleksey Vaneev]

As far as I understand it, it is all about bringing (over)compressed and dynamic material to an equal loudness situation. It is not about limiting loudness but LESS limiting and compression of dynamic audio. Overcompressed material gets 'punished'. The higher you compress the program material the lower the perceived loudness in teh end with a R128 regulated playback.

I do not see how less dynamic material will be penalized. LUFS measures loudness, it does not measure dynamic range. In the end it's no different from physical limitation imposed by PCM encoding, just at a different reference level. It can be worse in fact as you can cheat LUFS by using short but loud sonic bursts, can be more annoying than overcompression.

[Aleksey Vaneev]

As far as I understand it, it is all about bringing (over)compressed and dynamic material to an equal loudness situation. It is not about limiting loudness but LESS limiting and compression of dynamic audio. Overcompressed material gets 'punished'. The higher you compress the program material the lower the perceived loudness in teh end with a R128 regulated playback.

Well, you do not need R128 reference level, but need LUFS. What's the reason? Why not just look at RMS value and target for a certain level? I really do not get this whole R128 LUFS movement. Complication without benefit. K-level metering seems more reasonable, at least it is segmented for various uses.

[Aleksey Vaneev]

I like EBU scales because of the coloring (in Cubase). Because I use both SPAN and the Studio monitoring of Cubase a lot I tried to make them the same. I noticed it wasn't easy to get peak and RMS values the same for both. If I'm correct only when SPAN is in +3dBFS and Cubase in dBFS the metering for peak and RMS is the same. K-metering seems to be always different.

What I try to say is that it would be nice to have metering calibrated between different vendors. At least with popular DAW meters. Don't know if it's worth the work or even possible.

The situation with metering is very funny. From mathematical point of view, the RMS of 0dBFS peak-to-peak sinewave should stay at -3dBFS. Yet some "smart minds" decided to move it to 0 dBFS and promote this as wide as possible. This created situation when peak level of a program material can be lower than its RMS level which is completely counter-intuitive. Moreover, RMS of full-scale square wave can pop above 0 dBFS which is again wrong.

I had to add DBFS+3 to SPAN just to satisfy this awkward metering requirement. I guess situation with LUFS is similar - it is some viral suggestion without any real benefit over RMS metering, especially if you do not need to follow EBU R128 reference level restrictions.

[Harry_HH]

As far as I understand it, it is all about bringing (over)compressed and dynamic material to an equal loudness situation. It is not about limiting loudness but LESS limiting and compression of dynamic audio. Overcompressed material gets 'punished'. The higher you compress the program material the lower the perceived loudness in teh end with a R128 regulated playback.

Well, you do not need R128 reference level, but need LUFS. What's the reason? Why not just look at RMS value and target for a certain level? I really do not get this whole R128 LUFS movement. Complication without benefit. K-level metering seems more reasonable, at least it is segmented for various uses.

I have to say I partly agree with the need of adding LUFS to the Span, although
its OK as it is, too.
I use the Span all the time for controlling the RMS and the Peak, both very essential. But at the final mixing and mastering stage I use also the iZotope Insight for e.g. checking the LUFS. Burocracy or not, the fact is that the LUFS
is standard which is widely used.
The Span is much "happier" tool (very good GUI, colors, clear etc.) and easy to use during the recording - I got other alternatives such as Lives factory spectrum analyzer but I prefer the Span. Insight complements the Span in my work flow.

[Aleksey Vaneev]

But at the final mixing and mastering stage I use also the iZotope Insight for e.g. checking the LUFS. Burocracy or not, the fact is that the LUFS
is standard which is widely used.

OK, how much in your practice LUFS differs from RMS reading?