NUGEN Audio, creator of intuitive tools for audio professionals, announces Loudness Management Batch (LMB) version 1.5, an upgrade to its LMB processor for powerful, network-based, automated loudness processing of large numbers of audio and video files with no user intervention. The new version, which will made its debut at the 2013 NAB Show, will allow users to set LMB to demux the audio from MXF files, and handle various configurations of stereo and 5.1 for up to eight channels in one file.
“Audio engineers the world over are busier than ever now that they must answer to mandatory loudness standards. LMB gives busy post-production operations a way to automate part of their loudness processing by acting as a rapid fail-safe system and internal QC,” said Jon Schorah, creative director of NUGEN Audio. “The latest version introduces a new level of MXF automation, saving even more time in a busy post-production environment.”
The new update also includes support for native AIFF and compressed WAV files.
Based on NUGEN Audio’s loudness monitoring and correction engine, and serving as a complementary tool to NUGEN Audio’s VisLM and LM-Correct plug-ins, LMB operates faster than real time on batches of files, saving time and preventing human error. For streamlined video processing, LMB can automatically demux video to analyze the audio content without changing the original file. LMB’s Watched Folders automate file processing, and optional command-line operation allows for full integration into existing asset management systems and procedures.
Other LMB features include individual file handling for the simultaneous consideration of de-interleaved files in stereo and 5.1 configurations with user-definable file suffix identification. LMB also has a pass tolerance window for file analysis and correction, allowing existing audio within tolerance to pass without correction, and ultimately enabling more sophisticated workflow automation. LMB’s summary and detailed logs have a user-definable log frequency that specifies the time interval between selected parameter log entries, and optional corrected file suffixes can be added to output files to assist with file identification in unified I/O folder setups. LMB can also ignore test/alignment tones during analysis and processing.
A highly versatile tool for mixing, mastering, post-production, film, and broadcast, LMB is typically used as part of a content management workflow, as a stage of QC to check compliance of incoming content from third parties, or as a routine way of double-checking content when editors are using other loudness tools in the studio. LMB can also be configured to establish loudness parity of batches of files prior to mixing and editing.
LMB is fully compliant with the latest loudness standards including CALM Act (ATSC A/85) ITU-R BS.1770, EBU R128, and many other regional localizations, offering a complete professional solution for loudness and true peak compliance. LMB checks and corrects for integrated program loudness, short-term loudness, and even loudness range (LRA) targeting, which is highly effective when optimizing material with a wide loudness range — such as movie soundtracks, some sports, and live music — for consumer systems. LMB also takes care of true peak levels using a built-in back-stop limiter.
