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Topic: About Mudlord's EBU R128 Normalizer. (Read 2018 times) previous topic - next topic
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About Mudlord's EBU R128 Normalizer.

Hi,

In absence of a documentation or discussion page for this component, I decided to ask here.
Hopefully Mudlord, who's still active, will jump in, but I welcome anybody's contribution.

I have some questions which I'll number for ease of communication.
  • When it says that "it is shifting over time, rather than applying a constant level across an entire track", does it mean that it works realtime like the normalizer in Spotify or in some LG phones, rather than depending on metadata like ReplayGain?
  • Is it peak normalization? And if so, considering that it "shifts over time" instead of applying a constant value, how does it differ from a limiter?
  • Or is it loudness normalization? And if so, again considering that it shifts over time, does it change/reduce the dynamic range because it constantly changes the loudness instead of setting one value for the track as a whole?
  • If it uses loudness normalization, is it prone to potentially cause clipping like most ReplayGain do by increasing the average loudness regardless of the peaks?

Thanks

Re: About Mudlord's EBU R128 Normalizer.

Reply #1 –
Quote from: Infinite100 on
1. When it says that "it is shifting over time, rather than applying a constant level across an entire track", does it mean that it works realtime like the normalizer in Spotify or in some LG phones, rather than depending on metadata like ReplayGain?
Yes.

Quote from: Infinite100 on
2. Is it peak normalization? And if so, considering that it "shifts over time" instead of applying a constant value, how does it differ from a limiter?
It doesn't care about peaks. It uses the EBU R128 loudness estimation routines to try to estimate the loudness of the chunk of audio that is passing through and adjusts its gain to certain target. Limiter just limits too loud signal, entirely different thing.

Quote from: Infinite100 on
3. Or is it loudness normalization? And if so, again considering that it shifts over time, does it change/reduce the dynamic range because it constantly changes the loudness instead of setting one value for the track as a whole?
It is loudness normalization and since it's constantly changing it will reduce the dynamic range.

Quote from: Infinite100 on
4. If it uses loudness normalization, is it prone to potentially cause clipping like most ReplayGain do by increasing the average loudness regardless of the peaks?
Vast majority of music will have its loudness reduced by ReplayGain. Normal ReplayGain generally only makes very dynamic music louder, where the loudest parts could then clip. As this component should only make the quietest parts louder and loudest parts quieter, chances of clipping should be minimal.

Re: About Mudlord's EBU R128 Normalizer.

Reply #2 –
Quote from: Case on
It doesn't care about peaks. It uses the EBU R128 loudness estimation routines to try to estimate the loudness of the chunk of audio that is passing through and adjusts its gain to certain target. Limiter just limits too loud signal, entirely different thing.
Yes, if it's not peak normalization it definitely has nothing to do with a limiter.
But what I meant was that a peak normalization that shifts all the time instead of applying one constant value for the whole track would not be too different than a limiter.
But maybe I'm misunderstanding how a limiter works?

Quote from: Case on
As this component should only make the quietest parts louder and loudest parts quieter, chances of clipping should be minimal.
Hmmm, so it's a bit like a dynamic range compressor?

Anyway, not for me.
I'm looking for something that can make all tracks play at a reasonably similar volume BUT without clipping AND without any even minimal dynamic range compression.

But I was writing a separate post about the Foobar built-in RG Scanner, so I will ask it there.
Thanks :)

Re: About Mudlord's EBU R128 Normalizer.

Reply #3 –
Quote from: Infinite100 on
Quote from: Case on
As this component should only make the quietest parts louder and loudest parts quieter, chances of clipping should be minimal.
Hmmm, so it's a bit like a dynamic range compressor?
Yeah but with very long attack/release times as the LUFS metering involves very long RMS length (400ms for momentary, and especially 3 sec for short-term loudness measurement)

Also, I've now tried this normalizer thing and because of long lookahead, with the extreme bass boost (applied through built-in equalizer DSP boosting only the first band to the maximum) the volume attenuation kicks in before the bass heavy part of some songs