TC Electronic LM2 Plug-in - Manual (Page 7)

LM6 - Radar Loudness Meter / 7
EN
measures, low dynamic range signatures end up the loudest as shown by the red line
in Fig 1, right. Audio production is therefore trapped in a downwards spiral, going for
ever decreasing dynamic range. By now, the pop music industry is “right of” In Flight
Entertainment in the illustration.
LM6/LM2 offers a standardized option: The visualization of loudness history and DRT
in combination with long-term descriptors from production onwards, is a transparent
and well sounding alternative to our current peak level obsession. Not only for music,
but also in production for broadcast or film. The engineer, who may not be an audio
expert, should be able to identify and consciously work with loudness developments
within the limits of a target distribution platform, and with predictable results when the
program is transcoded to another platform.
LM6 therefore color codes loudness so it’s easy to identify target level (green), below
the noisefloor level (blue), or loud events (yellow), see Fig 2.
Fig 2
Color coding and target loudness for
selected broadcast platforms based on a
consumer’s Dynamic Range Tolerance,
DRT. The aim is to center dynamic range
restriction around average loudness,
in this case the –20 dB line, thereby
automatically avoiding to wash out
differences between foreground and
background elements of a mix.
Note how different the broadcast
requirements are from those of Cinema.
When production engineers realize the
boundaries they should generally stay
within, less dynamics processing is
automatically needed during distribution,
and the requirement for maintaining
time-consuming meta-data at a broadcast
station is minimized.
In broadcast, the goal is to use the same loudness measure for: Production, Ingest,
Linking, Master Control Processing and Logging - thereby ensuring better audio
quality not only in DTV audio, but across all broadcast platforms. LM6 and TC
processing can co-exist with PPM meters, VU meters or Dolby’s LM100 meter.
LM6 greatly increases the usability of LM100 in production environments because
it provides running status, and gives a standardized and intuitive indication of both
dialog and non-dialog program.