SLM 128 released

Dear forum-members,

Steinberg releases SLM 128 - a loudness metering plug-in for Nuendo 5.x and Cubase 6.5, including the
relevant R-128 measurement methods. This product has been developed in short term on the basis
of customer requests. It has passed internal measurement test successfully, but is not tested
entirely such as our other product. That’s why it’s an unsupported release.

SLM 128 is free of charge and can be downloaded here:
Steinberg Loudness Metering plug-in (SLM 128)

SLM 128 is a first “step” into the direction of loudness measurement. Nuendo 6 will see a complete
and fully integrated loudness metering solution.

Have fun!

Thanks,
Timo

I just posted this on Gearslutz… Thanks to Timo and the team!! :smiley:



It’s been running flawlessly here for the last 2 hours. I think what they meant by ‘unsupported’ is there wasn’t enough time to put it through the full testing process to check for stability, etc.

Thank you Steinberg, much appreciation for getting this out to us ahead of the Nuendo 6 release!!!

boingboingboing

This is great. Thank you very much.
I’ve always wondered why Nuendo had no loudness metering system. Is there any chance to have a small plugin with a K-meter? Or integrate a K-meter in this one you just released. I mean for Nuendo5 not 6. The K-system is already there in Wavelab, shouldn’t take much. Everybody who’s serious about mixing/mastering or post-production looks at loudness not at peaks. And Nuendo5 is a professional tool. K-system pleeeaaaase :slight_smile:
It is not good manner to ask for more when you just got something for free, I know :wink:

Hi,

thanks for your comments. K-system…I doubt we can deliver it within the 5.x cycle. WaveLab
has a completely different framework, that’s why “porting” something from WaveLab to Cubase/Nuendo
is not easily possible.

Nevertheless, I’ve got your point and we might have it for 6…

Thanks,
Timo

Thanks for that, Robin!

Yes!
Thanx for this unexpected very useful release!
N6? Mmm…Timo, may I take this opportunity to ask you when we can expect this N6 release?

Thanx again.

Hey Valerio,

hmm, still it will take some time until N6;-) Don’t expect a release in the next few months.

Thanks,
Timo

So fall and not summer then?

Cool, Very Cool. But can we make a suggestion. Our Nuendo Suites work on short form stuff (30 sec promos…). Because of its speed over protools.
We are using PPmulator for our loudness metering, #1 reason being it can be connected to pro tools or Nuendo transport control, therefore resetting every time you hit stop and hit play again. I understand for long form jobs this is no good, but the option for us “short formers” would be useful.

We have the SLM 128 Prefade on the control room mixer. But if not reset on every job being opened, the result being showed is an intergrated number of the days work. Other option is of course to included the SLM 128 as part of the template. But we like the idea of constant resetting with transport control. So PPmulator for now. But looking forward to the day when we can use the Steinberg product.

Apart from that its a great addition to Nuendo. Well done.

Same.

Short form user here, and so PPMulator is still my go to. But SLM128 is a great start and if it resets when playback starts it would be useful for me.

This SLM 128 plugin is just a free, simple version of what is to come in Nuendo 6.
Yes, it misses a lot of stuff. But it never was intended to be a “covers_it_all” solution to Loudness metering.


Fredo

Great news! :smiley:

Can confirm what Fredo said.

Thanks,
Timo

Well, you said it first, I was just repeating what you had said.
:smiley: :smiley: :smiley:

Fredo

I’ll just reiterate that I think it’s a great addition and for what it is now it’s fine. I do plenty of short form ads too, from 15s to a minute, but I really don’t mind resetting manually if that’s the tradeoff for a free plug…

I have a question about this process, which I believe is BS.1770-2 in the US (but not used) versus BS.1770-1 (used in the US). I just ran a quick test of a 30 second commercial and these are the numbers on the SLM:

Range: 7.2
True Peak: -10.1
Integrated: -24.6
Short Term: -24.0

and on the Dolby Media Meter:

Dialog Range: -22 to -24
Sample Peak: -10
All Infinity: -23
All Short: -23

Seeing that I’m in the US, is there a way for me to use this plug-in and “translate” it to BS.1770-1? Obviously I could simply do a bunch of mixes on one and measure on both, and then the reverse, and then compare, but I’m wondering if anyone here has any knowledge about this. Obviously I wouldn’t want QC to come back to me complaining about the numbers being off… From that test I did some numbers are within tolerance. US specs I’ve come across allows for -24, +/-2, for the complete program material (dialog+music etc). “Range” however…

Hello,

I haven’t tried it yet but that’s great news, we look forward to using it.
Hugh

The only difference between 1770-1 and 1770-2 is the fact that 1770-2 has a gating algo, which kicks in whenever audio is below a certain level. (meant to give a more realistic measurement of nature documentaries and other program material which has much and long low-level content. So in the case of commercials,99,99% of the material will never activate the gate, which should result in the exact same readings as the 1770-1


Fredo

Would you mind looking at the numbers I posted then and give an opinion of whether it looks normal or not. As far as I know Dolby Media Meter runs 1770-1, so the numbers are “correct”.

Thanks for the reply. Not bagging the product at all, just offering constructive “real world” feedback.

Media Meter has both 1770-1 and 1770-2.
During testing, we made comparative tests between pretty much all available metering plugins, and haven’t found any anomalies. Though most of the testing was done with EBU reference files … Will run a small test. Give me some time. pretty busy arçound here.

Fredo