Meterplugs Loudness Penalty Studio

This desktop version of Loudness Penalty does more than tell you how much streaming services will turn down your tracks!

Mastering engineer Ian Shepherd has worked with developers Meterplugs to create several software tools: after his Perception AB and Dynameter plug‑ins came the Loudness Penalty website, which analyses your mastered audio files and tells you how much streaming services will turn them up/down on playback. It works very well but, being a browser‑based service (the processing is done locally in the browser; your files aren’t uploaded to the Internet) it isn’t always easy to integrate into your workflow, not least because only one file can be analysed at a time. Now, Loudness Penalty Studio provides the same service and much more — not least the ability to actually hear the impact of loudness normalisation — in a convenient app for macOS and Windows.

In Use

Installation is quick and easy, and authorisation is by email address and serial code (emailed to you on purchase). Having launched Loudness Penalty Studio, you can start by dragging and dropping one or more audio files onto the upper part of the resizeable GUI. The software analyses each file automatically pretty quickly (6‑7 seconds for a four‑minute pop song, though it can seem a while for an hour‑long podcast!). Each file is represented as a block in the upper pane and listed below in text form, with some details: time (track length), LUFS (the integrated loudness), PLR (peak to loudness ratio or crest factor; a measure of dynamics) and LP (Loudness Penalty; the amount a loudness‑normalising streaming service turns the file up/down).

A Shift‑click enables you to start playback from the same position on multiple tracks — great for comparing differently processed versions of the same song.

Import more tracks in similar fashion, and they’re added to both displays: the blocks start to loosely resemble media clips on a DAW project timeline, and you can zoom in vertically and horizontally. The lower portion becomes a table: you can select tracks and transport controls above let you play them back and skip to the previous/next track. You can also click at any point on a block to start playback from that point. A very minor gripe was the lack of file time reference at the cursor, which would be a small improvement for playback auditioning. But there are thoughtful features too, including a Shift‑click to start playback from the same position on multiple tracks — great for comparing differently processed versions of the same song!

The blocks indicate a few different things about the audio. The width is the length, relative to other files. The pink line on each block is the LUFS‑I (integrated loudness). The top of the block is the true peak value, and any true‑peak clipping is highlighted. The white area describes the loudness range (the top value is the loudest 5%, the bottom the quietest 10%). It’s simple but useful information and once you get accustomed to the GUI, you’ll find that you can take in all you need to know with a quick glance: it’s easy to assess both the loudness and the dynamics of a bunch of tracks relative to each other.

At the top are a few more options. You can select which streaming service’s loudness normalisation you want to be the reference. Options are: Amazon Music, Apple Music, Deezer, Spotify, Tidal or YouTube, which covers most of the market. You can toggle Loudness Match on/off too: switch it on, and the blocks will move position and also gain an arrow, comprising a series of chevrons. These indicate the degree of movement from the orginal position — so how much the selected service would turn the file up/down — and the actual value is also displayed.

Finally, you can select Track or Album mode. In the latter, all tracks are turned down the same amount as the loudest, preserving the intended level differences between them. That can be useful not only when assessing a typical album, but also when mastering a multi‑artist collection of disparate tracks.

Verdict

The Loudness Penalty website will tell many people all they need to know about how a track will fare in loudness‑normalised streaming environments. But this new standalone version takes the idea further, in a very useful direction. The visual feedback is super easy to take in, so you can glean lots about an album or other compilation almost instantly. The drag‑and‑drop ease of use and ability to save and recall different multi‑file projects is more than welcome, as is the playback preview. It’s a great means of assessing your tracks in the context of commercial references, as you can not just see but actually hear how yours will sound in a typical playlist — you no longer have to rely on the numbers. And of course, as well as finding out exactly how much the different streaming platforms will ‘penalise’ your processing decisions, you’ll also learn which will or won’t boost the level of quieter masters (and by how much), and that’s every bit as useful!