Hello and many (many) thanks to all mods/developers.
I’ve happily used 2.3.3 daily for home voice work since studios closed here in March, and assume that 2.4.1 is beyond my ancient MBP (Intel Core 2 Duo 10.11.6 El Capitan). The rms-normalize plugin plus a gentle limiter form part of my go-to macro.
Normalizing to a -23 LUFS target would be very useful for some jobs. Is the ‘perceived loudness’ bit of 2.4.1’s Loudness Normalization based on a pre-existing plugin that I might conceivably install on 2.3.3? I don’t think so, but thought I’d ask.
And am I right that 2.4.1 definitely won’t work on pre-High Sierra, as opposed to ‘is unsupported on’?
In case it isn’t completely obvious, I knew less than nothing about any of this stuff in February.
There’s a very good chance that Audacity 2.4.1 will work on El Capitan. It’s certainly worth trying, and if it doesn’t work out you can go back to 2.3.3 (which is still available for download). Audacity 2.4.1 includes a “LUFS Normalization” effect: https://manual.audacityteam.org/man/loudness_normalization.html
If the new version doesn’t work -
Do you have a way of measuring LUFS? [u]dpMeter4[/u] supports OSX but I don’t know if it works in Audacity. (It does work with Audacity in Windows.)
Once you’ve measured LUFS it’s simply a volume adjustment (Amplify effect). i.e. If you measure -20dB, attenuating by 3dB will get you to -23 dB.
@Steve. Very encouraging to hear that 2.4.1 on El Cap is worth a pop. I’ve got a job this afternoon so will give it a try thereafter and report back. Might be useful info for any fellow OS dinosaurs.
If no joy:
@DVDdoug I downloaded the Youlean loudness meter (free not pro) but have yet to try adding the plugin. I was thinking I could just drag and drop a WAV into the standalone app, but that’s understandably a pro-only feature. I understand the plugin sometimes works with Audacity, sometimes not, and prob more likely on Windows. If it doesn’t, I can always install it on Garageband, check the wav in there, then adjust in Audacity. Or try your suggestion.
@kozkowski Aah, I looked at the Contrast tool but didn’t quite clock what it does. Silly. Clue’s in the name, after all. Very useful indeed. I’ve just been using Measure RMS for individual selections and noting any difference.
Success! I’ve updated* to 2.4.2. Everything seems in order and I see LUFS in my future.
Many thanks chaps.
*Installation failed at first because I hadn’t deleted 2.3.3 - the installer tried to replace it, but the result wouldn’t open, so clearly this isn’t the way to go about things. At least not on Macs of my vintage. It’s not entirely clear from the Mac Installation/Update page that it’s necessary to remove the old version before launching the installer, so I assume it generally isn’t. Unless it’s too obvious to mention.