Too loud! warning

[John Vere]

I don't use loops but I sometimes will grab one from the browser to test things when I need a quick audio or midi clip. I noticed the peak meters often are clipping. So I opened the You lean loudness meter and started dragging files from the " Backing Tracks" folder. Every single one of them is mastered too loud and clips and has nasty overs. Some were over +1.0 and the LUFS are real loud at -10 or so. So for those of you who do use loops these are most likely all distorted so be warned. This is the Dark String loop. Look at all those  red marks at the top of the graph- those are overs. And most others where the same. 

[Ted K. Ling]

Hi John, can you please give more details on the "Backing Tracks" folder and contents thereof ?  Where does this folder come from as I don't have it on my system.  I googled for Dark String loop bur couldn't find anything that matched your Backing Tracks folder.  Meanwhile, I downloaded the Pro version of LUFS from YouLean after seeing it here.  It's great, thanks.

Ted

[mark skinner]

 John , I made an interesting observation yesterday that may or may not be related to what you are describing. I imported a finished song into a project. I had pre mastered it in Ozone at -14 Lufs with a max peak of -1.1db. I brought it in just to see how it would sound about 4 bpm faster. I used the "stretch" tool at the end of the clip after changing the bpm in the project.  Listening I didn't like it. Looking ..  I was clipping everywhere. When I stopped the song I was up to 1.7 db peak at that point.  I undid the clip stretch option , and the levels returned to normal. At that point I wondered if an imported loop  was changed to the project bpm , would do the same thing ..   Didn't investigate and moved on .  Always confused .. mark

 

[bitflipper]

I think it just comes down to the reality that much of what exists in the loop world is amateur-made by folks who just don't know that loops are more akin to samples than to finished mixes. Plus anything identified as a "backing track" is probably meant to be used in a live situation, which would suggest being mastered loud. Just a guess.

I have rarely experienced this problem myself, which is most likely because the few loops I use are from commercial Kontakt libraries. I assume the loop you're talking about is one that's bundled with Cakewalk? If so, I'd guess those were not made by anyone at Cakewalk and probably sourced from a third party.

[chuckebaby]

Not much you can do with a sample that comes in at -10 lufs (unless its being used for EDM, Techno, etc.). You can clip gain the samples to -3 TP (which will also decrease the lufs value) but the LRA (Loudness Range) will not change.

Seeing a bit more of this lately with people downloading free beats YouTube and layering vocal tracks on top of them. some of mastering engineer friends have asked me the best way to deal with it. There simply isn't much you can do in terms of gain reduction. you might as well throw your limiter in the trash for that session.

 

[John Vere]

I assumed these came with CbB that's why the warning. Possibly they came with one of my older versions. I just checked and they are only on my main studio computer. 

If I open the media browser there is a list as below

 

 

If you open the Audio Library that's where I find the Backing tracks folder   But ya,  it's only  this computer, on my other 2 machines this is empty, So must be from older version.  But it's defiantly not 3rd party as I don't use loops so have never selected them as part of installation.  I have Sonar 8.5 and Splat but I thought I only did bare bones. Any how the Youlean loudness meter ( paid version) is worth it's weight in gold for me. I have been using it for everything, including videos. 

 

Edited July 16, 2021 by John Vere

[Mike Z]

32 minutes ago, John Vere said:

Any how the Youlean loudness meter ( paid version) is worth it's weight in gold for me. I have been using it for everything, including videos. 

I started using the free version of Youlean loudness meter a few weeks ago, would never go without it again. 

One side benefit for me of Youlean is it really helped me get a better grasp on how to set my compressors. I set up Youlean to display True Peak values then began adjusting the compressor settings.  Changing the threshold, ratio, and output settings shows how that affects the track volume in real time. It really makes a difference for me in managing peaks and loudness levels without compromising the dynamic range of the recordings.