WLM

[Jesse Peterson]

Ok, so we all just got the email for Waves WLM.

Has anyone seen an advanced copy?

I see buttons like LM1 and Dial, I can only guess what they're going for here but, how well does it work?

[nucelar]

Originally Posted by Jesse Peterson

Ok, so we all just got the email for Waves WLM.

Has anyone seen an advanced copy?

I see buttons like LM1 and Dial, I can only guess what they're going for here but, how well does it work?

About time... Seems you can DL a demo from their website.
WLM Loudness Meter Plugin | Waves
Whats interesting is the "follow transport" function. whats the use of this?

Regarding the method there it states:

Measurement Methods

EBU uses foreground audio as the loudness anchor.
LM1 measures and averages loudness across the whole program.
DIAL uses dialog as the loudness anchor, measuring and averaging loudness only when dialog is detected.

I guess It's some kind of "Dialog intelligence" but without the dolby badge? did they reverse-engineer it?
Anyway I thought Dialog intelligence was on the way to dissapear...

I hope all those "advanced" settings in the lower part should be hidden. Too much chance the wrong hands change some options.

[tom_lowe]

Originally Posted by nucelar

Anyway I thought Dialog intelligence was on the way to dissapear...

It was. I think Doby are trying to salvage it, now EBU R.128 is the new kid on the block, by licensing it for free to other manufacturers. Maybe this is how Waves got it?

Nice to see Waves are no longer limiting themselves to ripping off GUIs from CEDAR and DMGAudio though.

[cananball]

I though I heard a few months ago that Dolby was releasing it dialogue intelegence to third parties without any licensing fees. Wish I could remember where I read that. Anyway both r128 and a85 have mention of gating dialogue on their specs. This must be some standard vanilla gating technique that can be reproduce without Dolby being the gatekeeper? The seem the be the gatekeeper of everything else audio...

[JSt0rm]

Originally Posted by tom_lowe

Nice to see Waves are no longer limiting themselves to ripping off GUIs from CEDAR and DMGAudio though.

That still mezzes me. Why would they behringer themselves like that? Poor leadership at the top of that company.

[rcutz]

Originally Posted by tom_lowe

Nice to see Waves are no longer limiting themselves to ripping off GUIs from CEDAR and DMGAudio though.

[cananball]

Originally Posted by nucelar

I hope all those "advanced" settings in the lower part should be hidden. Too much chance the wrong hands change some options.

It has a minus sign in the top right indicating that you can hide the options. I agree there are lot of options you can choose, it it doesn't look hard to have one box checked improperly and screw up you deliverables.

I would love to read the manual for this but haven't found a link, and they have not yet updated the support section to include WLM. Anyone find it?

[stangroom]

Anyone tried it out yet?

[Nate Hoffman]

Originally Posted by stangroom

Anyone tried it out yet?

Yep. I bought it. Audiosuite doesn't work properly and doesn't even include a 5.1 version, but everything else is great!

[Studiofreq]

Originally Posted by stangroom

Anyone tried it out yet?

I bought it and like it a lot. Bottom line is, if you are using any loudness metering currently like the LM100 etc, chances are very high you will like the WLM more. More features and it's on-screen, so no more having to look over your shoulder. The GUI is very nice. "follow transport" feature is great. It satisfies all specs for EBU, ITU, ATSC. It has nice presets for pretty much anything youll come across including Discovery (hd, sd NTSC and sd PAL) and leq(a,b,c and m!) to name a few. CVS exportable logging including over/under and even custom assignable filtering if you are metering audio for hand held gaming devices, laptops, phones, tablets etc. All this for $300.

Alexander

[FullFrequency]

Originally Posted by Nate Hoffman

Yep. I bought it. Audiosuite doesn't work properly and doesn't even include a 5.1 version, but everything else is great!

Is that, there's no 5.1 at all, or just audiosuite?

[Studiofreq]

Originally Posted by FullFrequency

Is that, there's no 5.1 at all, or just audiosuite?

It must just be Audiosuite because I'm running it in 5.1 in AU in Logic right now. When in 5.1 mode, it gives you choice of monitoring various channel and combinations of channels ( left, right, center, stereo, L+C+R, All).

Alexander Jenkins

[FullFrequency]

Originally Posted by Studiofreq

It must just be Audiosuite because I'm running it in 5.1 in AU in Logic right now. When in 5.1 mode, it gives you choice of monitoring various channel and combinations of channels ( left, right, center, stereo, L+C+R, All).

Alexander Jenkins

Makes sense - otherwise would have been the most useless plugin ever lol

[Nate Hoffman]

Originally Posted by FullFrequency

Makes sense - otherwise would have been the most useless plugin ever lol

Yeah, I should have been more clear. RTAS works perfectly in 5.1.

[Jesse Peterson]

I already own/use Nugen VisLM.
Hit's LKFS 1770.2 with the dialog gate.. Does not include LEQ though hmm..

Nice to know it's out there, and cheap

[seanmccoy]

How's the CPU load? One thing that set the Nugen above the other meter plugins I tried was that it was extremely CPU efficient.

[Nate Hoffman]

Originally Posted by seanmccoy

How's the CPU load? One thing that set the Nugen above the other meter plugins I tried was that it was extremely CPU efficient.

Not a problem. Much better than DMM2.

[NReichman]

I just started demo'ing WLM today. DolbyLM100's were $1500 I think? DMM plug-in is $600? I just re-upped my Waves WUP plan, got a voucher, and that combined with a January discount makes WLM unprintably cheap with my dealer. This might be my impulse purchase this week...

[Kuba_Pietrzak]

So how would you compare NuGen VisLM with WLM?

Are there any differences in terms of the workflow and results?

Best,
Kuba

[tamasdragon]

I have mixed feelings about this plugin. It looks fine and I'm absolutely sure about that it is a good plug. But it won't do as many things as Nugen's plugin. Waves is not decided yet whether they will support AAX/AAX dsp fully or not, which is a big decision for sure, but as they are one of the biggest plugin company, it is strange. Somehow, for me, there are better alternatives than this new waves meter. Oh, and another thing: this plugin is NOT the part of any of the following bundles: Sound design bundle, Video sound suite, Broadcast and Production bundle. I thought these things are related.
I know it comes free with Mercury though.

[Whitecat]

Waves seem to be pretty stingy about adding plug-ins to bundles other than Mercury! It does happen (V-Series got added to Gold + higher, for example a while back) but it's never the stuff you'd kind of 'expect' - as you say, this seems a B+P no-brainer.

[Studiofreq]

Originally Posted by tamasdragon

I have mixed feelings about this plugin. It looks fine and I'm absolutely sure about that it is a good plug. But it won't do as many things as Nugen's plugin. Waves is not decided yet whether they will support AAX/AAX dsp fully or not, which is a big decision for sure, but as they are one of the biggest plugin company, it is strange. Somehow, for me, there are better alternatives than this new waves meter. Oh, and another thing: this plugin is NOT the part of any of the following bundles: Sound design bundle, Video sound suite, Broadcast and Production bundle. I thought these things are related.
I know it comes free with Mercury though.

I agree with Tamasdragon's point, it really should have been added to one of the production bundles. With it priced as low as it is, it looks like they are basically recouping R&D costs and not much more. If I'm wrong and they are making a boat load on this, I hope they put some of the $ into an X/Y surround panner which I'm pushing Waves pretty hard for (and hope others are too), which they'd better add at no cost to the 360 bundle...Grrr.
(the 360 bundle is amazing, but it provides rotation panning, not X/Y.)

Kind regards,

Alexander Jenkins

[SDDP]

Originally Posted by tamasdragon

I have mixed feelings about this plugin. It looks fine and I'm absolutely sure about that it is a good plug. But it won't do as many things as Nugen's plugin. Waves is not decided yet whether they will support AAX/AAX dsp fully or not, which is a big decision for sure

Waves is planning on supporting AAX. You can call them and ask sales to verify.

[superwack]

Originally Posted by SDDP

Waves is planning on supporting AAX. You can call them and ask sales to verify.

Yeah, he is confusing the issue on whether, or not, waves will support AAX DSP they are absolutely supporting AAX in the future.

I tried the wlm vs. a hardware LM100 (which are $3,000+ not $1,500) and although there seemed to be slight differences in ballistics/how fast the two meters react both the LM100 and WLM came out with the exact same long-term and short-term measurements on the 30 min program I tried it on.

Also, I'm somewhat confused by comparisons to the Nugen. While the VisLM is a great and useful plugin, it does not do DIALOG or LEQ(a) - which is what I need for delivery specs - so the comparisons between the two don't make sense to me (am I missing something)

[Jesse Peterson]

Originally Posted by superwack

Yeah, he is confusing the issue on whether, or not, waves will support AAX DSP they are absolutely supporting AAX in the future.

I tried the wlm vs. a hardware LM100 (which are $3,000+ not $1,500) and although there seemed to be slight differences in ballistics/how fast the two meters react both the LM100 and WLM came out with the exact same long-term and short-term measurements on the 30 min program I tried it on.

Also, I'm somewhat confused by comparisons to the Nugen. While the VisLM is a great and useful plugin, it does not do DIALOG or LEQ(a) - which is what I need for delivery specs - so the comparisons between the two don't make sense to me (am I missing something)

Just to be clear, wasn't comparing on my end. I very very rarely get LEQ and dialnorm specs.. it's all LKFS +/-

I'm excited ( ok that's an over statement ) that WLM is around and cheap.. so when I do get that spec, I'm covered and don't need to shell out for Dolby this and dolby that.

[stangroom]

Anyone tested the different modes: EBU, LM1 and DIAL?

When you select the "Discovery" preset, it moves to the DIAL mode, but what's funny is when I ran this down simultaneously with my Media Meter, the number never ever moved! I've been using EBU for everything, and then just changing the weighting to what I need it for. LM1 seems to give me the same numbers, but the short term readings seem to be fewer and farther between (smoother, in a way, but less informative). Anyways, I'd love to hear other people's thoughts.

***UPDATE - Just checked it again today, and apparently it works fine now. Must have been a PT/RTAS issue at the time. Anyways, still curious everyone's opinion of the 3 methods and which they're going with.

[insomaniac]

I'm playing around with WLM, VisLM-C and H, and Vsonics Vmeters demos, and maybe I need to spend more time with the VisLM manual, but the readings I'm getting don't match up with the WLM or the Vmeters, even when all are set to the same preset (A85 in this case). Vmeters and WLM are giving me identical readings.

It also seems like the interface is super picky in where I click, forcing me to click repeatedly before the "button" press is registered and the view switches. Is that normal?

[Studiofreq]

Originally Posted by stangroom

Anyone tested the different modes: EBU, LM1 and DIAL?

Anyways, still curious everyone's opinion of the 3 methods and which they're going with.

Per Waves, the WLM factory default is preset to meet both EBU and ATSC recommendations for most programs. The other presets cover pretty much everything else that you might run across having to comply with. You'll choose the measurement method based on the program type and content.

WLM can generate a CSV log file which actually takes readings of all three measurement methods (EBU, LM1 and Dial), simultaneously so you can compare all three. You can do that in real-time, or off-line (Audiosuite only).

Here is a copy/past from the manual about the three methods:

• EBU uses foreground audio as the loudness anchor.
• LM1 measures and averages loudness across the whole program.
• DIAL uses dialog as the loudness anchor, measuring and averaging loudness only when dialog is detected.

Kind regards,

Alexander Jenkins

[CaseyJames]

As a composer how might I make use of something like waves' WLM?

TV is the target. I never know how to set the music level in relation to the dialog, so I wing it. The mixstage handles setting the final balance so that it meets the standards, but it would be much easier to make a mix that cuts through and doges the dialog if i knew more precisely how loud that music would be under the dialog (usually much softer that the level that I compose and mix at)

Is this a appropriate use for this plugin or is it really only for ensuring that the standards are being met?

[NReichman]

Casey James:

WLM is not going to do much to help you. It's even unlikely that you're listening to mixed dialog while writing. The best you can do is work intuitively, and request final mixes of previous episodes from the soundstage so you can get to know how high the re-recording mixer typically puts your cues in. Composition, arrangement, and music mix are where you can adjust your work to fit around dialog.

While mixing music cues for TV, I often send the entire music mix to a submaster that I can move way up or down to get a feel for where a cue might sit in relation to dialog and sfx.

Good luck.