Loudness Meta Normalizer Dialog - WaveLab Elements - 12.0

• To open the Loudness Meta Normalizer dialog, select the Edit tab in the Audio Montage window, and click Meta Normalizer in the Loudness section.

Clips, Audio Montage Output, and Master Section Output

• With Clips activated, the gain settings of all clips in your audio montage are adjusted individually.

• With Audio Montage Output activated, the post-gain setting of the audio montage is modified, so that the audio montage mixdown matches the specified peak level.

• With Master Section Output activated, the Master Section gain fader is adjusted, so that the audio montage mixdown is matched to the specified peak level before applying the Final Effects/Dithering plug-ins. The audio montage itself is not modified by this operation.

Match Loudness menu

This menu is exclusively available for clips. It allows you to select the loudness to match. The following options are available:

• Clips only:

  Do Not Change Loudness

  Limits the peaks as specified, without performing a loudness analysis.

• Clips only:

  Match Loudest Clip

  Automatically identifies the loudest clip and sets all other clips to its loudness level.

• Clips only:

  Match Loudness of Active Clip

  Sets all clips to the loudness level of the active clip.

• Clips only:

  Equalize Peak Levels

  Automatically identifies the clip with the highest peak level and sets all other clips to the same peak level.

  Note

  This option disregards loudness values and only considers peak values.

Maximum Peak Level

You can choose from the following options:

• Do Not Restrict Peaks

  Keeps the Meta Normalizer from preventing clipping by limiting peaks.

  Note

  Activating Do Not Restrict Peaks can result in audio levels exceeding 0 dB.

  However, you can remedy problems arising from this by adjusting the peaks via level reduction techniques later on in the signal path. Generally, clipping occurs at the final stage of the audio stream, on playback or when saving to file.

• Control Digital Peaks

  Limits the sample values, with the peak measured in the digital domain as the reference.

• Maximum Peak

  Determines the maximum peak value not to be exceeded.

Outcome

This section is exclusively available for clips. You can choose from the following options:

Enforce Equal Loudness

Note

This option is only available in conjunction with one of the following items selected from the Match Loudness menu:

• Match Loudest Clip

• Match Loudness of Active Clip

• Set Specific Loudness

Reduces the target loudness in the event that, with Control True Peaks or Control Digital Peaks selected, a clip cannot reach the required gain to match the reference loudness. As a result, all clips are set to the same loudness, and clipping is prevented.

For example, if the target loudness is set to -8 LUFS but there is a clip in the audio montage that can only reach -9 LUFS, all clips are set to -9 LUFS.

Change Pre-Gain (Exclude Effects)

Adjusts the Pre-Gain level of the clips, without taking any clip effects into account.

Note

The current Pre-Gain values are displayed in the CD window.

Change Post-Gain

Adjusts the Post-Gain level of the clips, which means that clip effects are taken into account.

The current Post-Gain values are displayed in the CD window.

Process Selected Clips Only

Applies the settings made in the Loudness Meta Normalizer dialog exclusively to selected clips and ignores all other clips. As a consequence, the unselected clips do not contribute to the mixdown of the audio montage that is used to analyze the output loudness.