A Mastering Loudness Maxim

[Superdisc]

Recently, Wado1942 claimed to win the loudness war with a square wave recording, but when I measured (rather than calculated) the loudness (RMS Level) of a sine wave I found it was 0.8 dB louder than his submission.

Just proves the mastering engineer's maxim:

SINE WAVES ARE LOUDER THAN SQUARE WAVES

[Waltz Mastering]

Damn, and just when we thought the war was ending... back to the trenches...or does that mean you won and we can still go home? ; )

[steveschizoid]

Wavelab claimed Waldo's square wave was -0.0 dB - why would that be incorrect?

[24-96 Mastering]

Originally Posted by Superdisc

Recently, Wado1942 claimed to win the loudness war with a square wave recording, but when I measured (rather than calculated) the loudness (RMS Level) of a sine wave I found it was 0.8 dB louder than his submission.

Just proves the mastering engineer's maxim:

SINE WAVES ARE LOUDER THAN SQUARE WAVES

Not sure how you measured, but the RMS of a square wave will always be 3.01 dB lower than that of a sine wave.

Maybe Wado and you are measuring RMS with different standards (in AES17 standard, a sine wave's RMS results in 0dBfs whereas most audio applications (not following AES17 standard) will display -3.01 dBfs)

[HobbyCore]

Originally Posted by Superdisc

Recently, Wado1942 claimed to win the loudness war with a square wave recording, but when I measured (rather than calculated) the loudness (RMS Level) of a sine wave I found it was 0.8 dB louder than his submission.

Just proves the mastering engineer's maxim:

SINE WAVES ARE LOUDER THAN SQUARE WAVES

The "loudest" waveform possible in the digital realm is a triangle wave at the nyquist frequently.

Once it passes the DA though, all bets are off.

[Superdisc]

Originally Posted by steveschizoid

Wavelab claimed Waldo's square wave was -0.0 dBfs - why would that be incorrect?

look at the loudness tab

[Superdisc]

Opps, my bad

Wavelabe shows his submission 5 dB louder.

Bob

[steveschizoid]

I am using Wavelab 5 analysis function, and on the loudness tab it shows it shows avg rms as 0.0 db, although, interestingly enough, it shows the minimum as -.6 and -.28 left and right respectively. I couldn't find any mention in the help section about measuring standards. I processed the file with a maximizer , then a limiter, both set to maximum stun (maximum gain, output at 0.0), and it actually reduced the avg rms to -1.0 dB! Should I ask UAD for a refund?

[Nordenstam]

Hi!

Originally Posted by 24-96 Mastering

Not sure how you measured, but the RMS of a square wave will always be 3.01 dB lower than that of a sine wave.

Been known to mix up those numbers plenty of times, it's easy! Here's the crux:

RMS is a reading of area. A square wave covers all the available area at all times, hence the peak and RMS reading are the same.

A sine wave is a circle(excellent animation here). The area of a circle is pi*radius^2. With a unit circle of radius 1, the area is simply pi. We're looking at one fourth of that circle, so the area is pi/4. Or 45 degrees, or more precisely, half the square root of two. As can be seen in the unit circle below:



This number, sqrt2/2=0.707, can also be written in deciBel as -3.01dB - the RMS reading of a sine wave. By looking at the circle above, it's also easy to see why -3.01dB equals 50% of the maximum value, it's exactly at 45'. Or pi/4, or sqrt2/2, etc..



Nerdy cheers

Andreas

[Superdisc]

Originally Posted by steveschizoid

I am using Wavelab 5 analysis function, and on the loudness tab it shows it shows avg rms as 0.0 db, although, interestingly enough, it shows the minimum as -.6 and -.28 left and right respectively. I couldn't find any mention in the help section about measuring standards. I processed the file with a maximizer , then a limiter, both set to maximum stun (maximum gain, output at 0.0), and it actually reduced the avg rms to -1.0 dB! Should I ask UAD for a refund?

For some reason Wavelab 5 gives you a different result than Wavelab 6 by 3 dB - I don't know why. Wavelab 6 read it out at +3 (which I mis-read as -3). Wavelab 6 generally agrees with VU Meter readouts, although I don't know how you can get a +3 RMS level on a digital signal.


Bob

[wado1942]

The AES standard for measuring RMS level is measured against a sine wave. So a 0dBfs sine wave will read "0dBFS RMS" but a square wave, which is always full scale digital and nothing in between will read louder. This is the standard I use BTW. My software actually has a switch to measure RMS level against a sine wave or square wave. Now that I think of it, so does Voxengo.

[24-96 Mastering]

Originally Posted by Superdisc

For some reason Wavelab 5 gives you a different result than Wavelab 6 by 3 dB - I don't know why. Wavelab 6 read it out at +3 (which I mis-read as -3). Wavelab 6 generally agrees with VU Meter readouts, although I don't know how you can get a +3 RMS level on a digital signal.


Bob

In Wavelab general preferences, you can set RMS metering to conform to AES17 or not. This is new in WL6 and that's where the difference comes from.

Without AES17 ticked, a 0dBfs SQUARE wave will result in a RMS reading of 0dBfs.
With AES17 ticked, a 0dBfs SINE wave will result in a RMS reading of 0dBfs (and the square wave will produce a reading of +3.01).

PS: Just saw that Wado already wrote the sine/square wave part. Sorry for a partial repeat.