This depends on the meter. Some of them have -24 (or -23, I believe it got changed in one edition of R128) set as 0. (Those should, in theory, measure in LU, not LUFS.)
...so simply grab any meter that can show LUFS correctly. (Like https://www.meldaproduction.com/plugins/product.php?id=MLoudnessAnalyzer) reset it, play the whole track from beginning to the end and the integrated value should stay on -23 LUFS at the end. (I think there is -+1db tolerance) If not, compensate the difference and run it again.

I believe there are some off-line tools for that, but I haven't searched for them yet.

EDIT: Oh, I'm sorry, wrong info. M-Loudness Analyser is by default also -23 = 0. ...but there's a LUFS preset ... or you can target that zero.

There's a preset that says: LUFS EBU R 128

My target range for -24 LUFS is to be the -24 on that scale?

Could I mix my song to be in decibels and then drop my volume, after a master render, to have an RMS at -24 LU?

Should mix at that level and then bring every thing up?

I work at TV broadcast company, you can trust me on this:
It's "recomandation" by EBU (European Broadcasting Union) called R128. It's targeted especially at commercials being much louder than the actual content at tv/radio.

That paper dercsibes three main things:

1) It defines LUFS. They are essentially full scale decibels, but with a twist. For meaturing LUFS manufacturers need to build precisely described high-shelf filter into their meters, that compensates ear's sensitivity around 3-5k. So if you measure 1k sine with LUFS, it will return same value as dBFS meter would. If you measure 5k sine of the same volume, it fill go up by I believe 4LUFS.

2) It defines integration times and measuring gates. That means it tells you (and meter's manufacturers) how to measure average Loudness across whole "program" you're making. ...leaving silent parts out of the measurement and so on...

3) It says that the recommandation is, for all TV's and radios, to normalize all their content to -24 LUFS. That way, in theory, you shouldn't have those huge volume jumps when commercial spot goes on.

...problem that I have with R128 is, that it's far from perfect, but engineers tend to praise it. It's totally useless for certain types of content (classical music, some football matches etc...). Lot of engineers (I guess including the one you spoke to.) think it'll save the world and they require everyone and everything to target at -24LUFS. But in music bussines, as far as I know, nobody gives a damn about R128, so you would end up with intentionally quiter mix than everyone else. ...I'd say, just leave this to radio station engineers. It's essentially their problem.

EDIT: If you're interested, here's the R128:
https://tech.ebu.ch/docs/r/r128.pdf
...and here's the ITU paper it refers to for definition of LUFS measurement:
https://www.itu.int/dms_pubrec/itu-r/rec/bs/R-REC-BS.1770-4-201510-I!!PDF-E.pdf

Thank you. If i were to send it to him, would I have to lower my volume to the reference of LUFS -20K weighted and get about -4 on that scale before sending it in to him?

Hey,

It's great to start a topic about this, I virtually don't know much about it.

I found this site though, it explains a lot:

http://www.r128audio.com/

I never encountered music that's mastered @ -23 LUFS but that's probably because it's a system for broadcasting, not mastering.

I bought this plugin (Hornet ELM128) and it can normalize your music to -23 LUFS and believe me, music that's normalized that way is almost inaudible in comparison to music that isn't normalized. But it's a great tool to compare different songs at the same loudness. Great to compare a mix and a master of the same song to each other, for example.

http://www.hornetplugins.com/plugins/hornet-elm128/

Thanks, can you normalize it to other reference points?

http://www.mzuther.de/en/software/kmeter/

i picked up this guy last night, and it was pretty interesting to use. I couldn't seem to get it to work when i had my plugs in activated, but i rendered out a master stem and popped it on my master channel and lowered the stem's volume to where it was -4 in the LUFS -20K range on the RMS level.

Would that be the equivalent to normalizing to -24 LUFS? (I know LUFS is a K weight.

maybe take a break and come back to it.

Just like managing how you create, you have to manage yourself.

You might get the idea when you step away from your work to clear your mind and have it process the information at hand.

Xan also has some suggestions that would work, once you figure out what you're going for.

I end up making piano music if i start my song with a piano.

For me, the most challenging part was actually creating the sounds to not make them sound so cheese. I spent quite a few years trying my hand at different techniques in sound. from growl basses to more analogue inspired, i kind of lost myself in that part of electronic music.

I've been circling back with my new chops and started to realize the music again.

If you know what you're bad at, work on that for a while until you realize "oh i am not making music any more" lol. it might take you some talking to with friends to realize that.

If you have the musical chops down, then the sounds might be getting in the way. Because, dance music doesn't haaaave to be that complicated.

but the sound from an instrument is, to me, just as important as the notes you choose to play with that sound.

A few things: Make sure there is no filter on the pure sine wave you're using, whether in the synth or in the DAW.  Make sure your headphones are rated for 20kHz+. Otherwise, it won't matter how high the synth emits sounds.  Use a frequency analyzer (Spectrum in ableton) to visualize the sound to help your ears and confirm the sound. 

Hopefully this helps.

it's not a synth, they have a tone generator in the option window.

You do need to increase the volume to hear the higher frequencies, just because they have a faster vibration and aren't as prominent as the lower frequencies.

Check out waves and amplitudes.

If you're really concern, go to a doctor, but it seems like it's pretty normal.

http://plasticity.szynalski.com/tone-generator.htm

I used this thing and at like 9760hz, my right ear picks up more than the left.

14132hz is where my left ear picks up more than my right ear.

past the 9760hz, on it's way to 14132hz, the tones shift to the middle then at around 11686hz, is when i get both ears to sound relatively the same volume.

Probably a little biased towards the right.

I was also at volume level of 9% the whole time. 16134hz is where i have to crank up the volume 100%. I think that's also my tinnitus range.

the volume percentages were based off the site.

I think that's pretty ok, i mean, i don't know how symmetrical my ears should be, with some digging i found that each ear picks up different things. Right is more speech oriented and left is more musically oriented.

our faces aren't symmetrical, so i am not sure other than to go see a doctor if you're concerned.

http://www.healthyhearing.com/report/43310-Ten-signs-of-hearing

i've also seen quite a few of these things pop up over the search.

Quote from: Lydian on February 23, 2016, 10:08:14 pm

Quote from: FarleyCZ on February 23, 2016, 09:32:59 pm

I like to have there as little stuff as possible. The mud lives there. ...but also "warmness", so I take most "warm" instrument I have there and let it be possibly the ony one speaking to that range. ...or one of very few.

The mud I've found exists mainly in the 200z region. It's hard for me to intentionally leave it with as little instruments as possible because that's where I tend to place all my harmonic and melodic content.

Imho the trick to this are shallow filters, but higher in frequency than you'd actually give them otherwise. It doesn't break frequency ballance of the instrument too much as steep cut at 200hz would, but it pushes the low mid-end back quite nicely. You essentially don't get rid of that mud, but push it back, so "brighter" parts can shine a bit more.

I might have made mention of this before, you're eqing and mixing of the signals comes from a balance of subtractive and additive eq. Your signal chain is incredibly important here.

there's a few things that i do to all of my channels, and that's a pre eq, filters, mix eq.

the pre eq is subtractive with a gentle slope of a low cut and maybe a slight high cut (i hate really high frequencies), then comes the filter part, low cut and high cut.

the filtering process and mix eqing comes from the same reverb unit. The low and hi cuts are typically more exaggerated (be careful of inscreasing the resonance with your bandwith on the low cut. You can adjust this by setting the Q or band with to where it doesn't bump up past 0). Then you can hunt around to see where things need to be boosted, but don't over do this because it messes things up really quickly.

Some tips on subtractive and additive eq; i read some where online that it's suggested to have a small band width when taking away, but using a wide band width when adding. I don't know the reason, but i tried it and it seems to work for me. I personally think that this is so just because of the inherit nature of taking things away and adding things. You'd hope for a small pay cut but a bigger bonus right?

MSCLS, but when he was LeDoom, said the same thing about making subtractive eq. A discussion we had outside of a club in san antonio a few years ago.

So you have to kind of control the beast when it comes to where things are in the mix. But not control it to a point where IT HAS TO BE HERE OR I CAN'T WORK WITH IT.

Understand the natural tendency of yourself, the sound, and the frequency at which things happen with any help at all. That should best help you when you're stuck on something.

A walk also helps....

nah.

You're being pretty specific, and i think for most the creation process isn't that specific.

I think you can be as specific or unspecific as you want to be, or what you knowledge allows you to be.

I will say that if you do have a range of frequency that your layers are being applied at, you have a better chance of placing them in the mix.

But how sound works is that, you're going to have little pieces of every thing that's more prominent during application. That's why you filter out any thing below or on top of other element's space.

I will say that, i did try to make sure to cut out any thing specifically that would be in the way of other things, but that didn't quit work out. It's like holding the door for every one else with out actually walking through the door.

When ever i do subtractive and additive eq, i really listen to what the sound needs in order to best benefit the mix. It's not how can i make room for others, but how can this be best projected in the mix. and what can i do to enhance the aural content.