Bug Report 2.4.2 Possibly insignificant Loudness Normalization oddity

While fiddling with Loudness Normalization, I noticed a bug so minor and cosmetic that it may not be worth mentioning, or even a bug at all. Plus I’m on an unsupported OS, so it may not be replicable. But its a slow day, so here you go.

2.4.2 on macOS 10.11.6
When reopening Loudness Normalization, it remembers whether I last chose ‘perceived loudness’ or ‘RMS’ but initially shows LUFS not dB, even if RMS is selected

  1. Loudness Normalization > RMS -x dB > OK
  2. Loudness Normalization

brings this:
PossLNBug.png
i.e. it shows the LUFS target, even though RMS is selected

If I apply it, it RMS normalizes to the correct previous dB rather than normalizing perceived loudness to the displayed -16 LUFS. And the text/value corrects if I toggle to perceived loudness then back to RMS.

Yes, it’s a bug, and it’s a new one (it does not happen in Audacity 2.4.1, only in 2.4.2)
I’ll log it on the bug tracker.
Thanks for the report.

What’s the work-around? Switch to Loudness and then back to RMS? This only happens if you used Loudness last time and RMS this time, right?

Koz

The bug does not affect what the effect does, it’s just that the units are incorrect.
Example: If it says “Normalize [RMS] to [-20] LUFS”, then the units should be “dB”, and the effect will correctly normalize to -20 dB RMS.


Yes, if you switch to “Loudness” and then back to “RMS” then the units are displayed correctly.


This happens if you used RMS last time. When the effect is launched, it correctly selects the last used setting (“RMS”) but incorrectly reverts the units to “LUFS”.

Thanks Steve.

Just noticed that if you replace the value (without toggling to correct the unit first) then OK, it will ignore and RMS normalize to the previously used dB regardless. The number initially shown seems always to be the last used perceived loudness value, even if that was several iterations ago.

@koz Could always use RMS Normalize plugin for RMS and just keep Loudness Normalization for LUFS in the meantime?