[MLA] iTunes NOT using -16 LUFS yet ?

[Bob Katz]

Dear Ian:

Thanks for doing that research.


I can't wait till this all gets straightened out...

A client just told me (for the umpteenth time) that his song is playing 
too soft on some platform or another. I told him either I could crush it 
for him and it will sound distorted and overcompressed, or he has to 
live with the problem on non-normalized platforms. This is a 
great-sounding song that we could ruin for the sake of loudness. Age old 
story.



Bob



On 2/24/22 6:36 AM, Ian Shepherd wrote:
>
> Hi All,
>
> Buddy got back to me quickly - he says there is a known issue with the 
> macOS Music app where songs bought and downloaded still use the old 
> Sound Check value, which they’re working on. This explains the strange 
> M1 Mac result.
>
> I also tested from my iPhone this morning which is normalising to -16 
> LUFS, even with older files like Death Magnetic, which is great news.
>
> However my Mojave iTunes is still using the Legacy Sound Check 
> setting, I’ve asked Buddy if there will be an update to fix this and 
> will let you know what he says.
>
> So, basically good news - hopefully they’ll fix that bug fairly 
> quickly, and hopefully also roll LUFS back to older Mac OS versions. 
> Lots of musicians and engineers use these old versions, so it will be 
> a source of plenty of confusion if they don’t...
>
> Ian
>
>
>
>> On 23 Feb 2022, at 16:18, Bob Katz <bobkatz at digido.com> wrote:
>>
>>
>> On 2/23/22 6:38 AM, Ian Shepherd wrote:
>>>
>>> Hi All,
>>>
>>> Just a heads-up about this. We’re planning an update to Loudness 
>>> Penalty to reflect the news that iTunes is going to use LUFS for 
>>> Sound Check, but I wanted to warn you that in our tests it doesn’t 
>>> seem to be working as intended, even on a brand new M1 Mac with the 
>>> latest software updates and recently released material.
>>>
>>> I have other examples but specifically Bob drew my attention to this 
>>> song:
>>>
>>> https://music.apple.com/gb/album/the-joker-and-the-queen-feat-taylor-swift/1608894948?i=1608894952
>>>
>>> Using the afinfo command in Terminal it reports the following results:
>>>
>>>> aa itu loudness: -8.5
>>>> sound check volume normalization gain: -7.50 dB
>>>
>>> This would result in a playback loudness of -16 LUFS, but measuring 
>>> the actual value gives a result of -15.1 LUFS, which is a 
>>> normalization change of only -6.6 dB
>>
>>
>> Oy vey.
>>
>> Well, I agree, this means that the legacy SoundCheck is being used. 
>> We need some clarification from Buddy Judge.
>>
>> Let's compile this information and alert Buddy Judge. At the least he 
>> will have an explanation.
>>
>>
>>>
>>> Whereas the "Song Info>File>Volume" value in iTunes reports -6.7, 
>>> which is obviously a very close match to the measured result. Since 
>>> this is the “Legacy” Sound Check value, this song and other examples 
>>> like it make me think that LUFS values aren’t being used yet, on Mac 
>>> OS at least.
>>>
>>> Testing the results from iOS is tricky because of Apple’s copy 
>>> protection, but if we make any progress with this I’ll let you know.
>>>
>>> I’ve emailed Buddy to ask about this, and will let you know if I get 
>>> a reply - perhaps it’s just a glitch!
>>>
>>> Either way I wanted to make you aware so that we don’t jump the gun 
>>> announcing the change.
>>>
>>
>> I'm glad you wrote him!
>>
>>
>> Best,
>>
>>
>>
>> Bob
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>> Cheers,
>>>
>>> Ian
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> ***
>>> Ian Shepherd
>>> Mastering Media Ltd <http://mastering-media.co.uk/> - Audio 
>>> Mastering, Blu-ray and DVD Excellence
>>> http://twitter.com/ianshepherd
>>>
>>> <http://twitter.com/ianshepherd>Mastering Media Ltd,
>>> Kemp House, 152 City Road, London, EC1V 2NX
>>> Registered in England and Wales
>>> Company No. 073500450
>>>
>>> Tel. +44(0)1487 842498
>>>
>>>
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> MLA mailing list
>>> MLA at grimmaudio.nl
>>> http://grimmaudio.nl/mailman/listinfo/mla_grimmaudio.nl
>> -- 
>> If you want good sound on your album, come to Bob Katz 407-831-0233 
>> DIGITAL DOMAIN MASTERING STUDIO Author: *Mastering Audio* Digital 
>> Domain Website <https://www.digido.com/> No trees were killed in the 
>> sending of this message. However a large number of electrons were 
>> terribly inconvenienced.
>> _______________________________________________
>> MLA mailing list
>> MLA at grimmaudio.nl
>> http://grimmaudio.nl/mailman/listinfo/mla_grimmaudio.nl
>
-- 

If you want good sound on your album, come to Bob Katz 407-831-0233 
DIGITAL DOMAIN MASTERING STUDIO Author: *Mastering Audio* Digital Domain 
Website <https://www.digido.com/> No trees were killed in the sending of 
this message. However a large number of electrons were terribly 
inconvenienced.
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://grimmaudio.nl/pipermail/mla_grimmaudio.nl/attachments/20220301/7a2fb253/attachment.html>