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Topic: New version & ownership of (TT) Dynamic Range DR Meter: MAAT.digital (Read 19334 times) previous topic - next topic
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New version & ownership of (TT) Dynamic Range DR Meter: MAAT.digital

New version available now for "all" platforms.
New offline version coming end of June.
Couldn't find any info about the Foobar component.

Message from Pleasurize Music Foundation

MAAT.digital
XLD // ALAC // OGG VORBIS

Re: New version & ownership of (TT) Dynamic Range DR Meter: MAAT.digital

Reply #1
Thanks a lot for the info. :)

Re: New version & ownership of (TT) Dynamic Range DR Meter: MAAT.digital

Reply #2
Quote
MAAT will not only maintain the DRMeter in the future but also improve it into an evolved fully ITU BS.1770 (R128/A-85) compatible universal metering tool (DRMeter MkII). Release is scheduled before end of 2017.

Thank goodness. R128 is a drastic improvement. DR Meter magically gives vinyl rips extra dynamic range, presumably due to noise. R128 is less easily tricked. I find I can trust the loudness range in LU much more.
Thanks for the post.

Re: New version & ownership of (TT) Dynamic Range DR Meter: MAAT.digital

Reply #3
presumably due to noise
It's foibles were not even remotely due to noise.  I'll be happy to see that crude metric die a long and agonizing death.

https://hydrogenaud.io/index.php/topic,102895.0.html

FWIW, R128 seems to have a pretty serious issue as well:
https://hydrogenaud.io/index.php/topic,110561.msg911014.html#msg911014

Re: New version & ownership of (TT) Dynamic Range DR Meter: MAAT.digital

Reply #4
FWIW, R128 seems to have a pretty serious issue as well:
https://hydrogenaud.io/index.php/topic,110561.msg911014.html#msg911014

Fair enough. I hope this can be improved upon in future standards.
However, I will say in the context of my large music library, as well as our library of recordings at work, it does a great job of giving consistent playback levels (I use JRiver for this) and also giving me quick useful info to determine if one of my staff edited properly or not. It is a big step forward and the industry has really latched onto loudness standards. Here's hoping the progress continues.

Re: New version & ownership of (TT) Dynamic Range DR Meter: MAAT.digital

Reply #5
I find that David Robinson's original algorithm does a better job.  R128 exaggerates the loudness of modern mastering; for metal at the very least.

Re: New version & ownership of (TT) Dynamic Range DR Meter: MAAT.digital

Reply #6
I find that David Robinson's original algorithm does a better job.  R128 exaggerates the loudness of modern mastering; for metal at the very least.
+1, using it with logitech mediaserver. When R128 was introduced i had ambient music to low in level for my impression. I use RG in metaflac.
Is troll-adiposity coming from feederism?
With 24bit music you can listen to silence much louder!

Re: New version & ownership of (TT) Dynamic Range DR Meter: MAAT.digital

Reply #7
Case was kind enough to tell me how to continue using foobar2000 to calculate RG using the original algorithm:
https://hydrogenaud.io/index.php?topic=113986.msg938727#msg938727

Re: New version & ownership of (TT) Dynamic Range DR Meter: MAAT.digital

Reply #8
Thanks but i don't use foobar for such things. I use only flac and the limited resampling/packing/RG i still do with the vintage frontah.
Is troll-adiposity coming from feederism?
With 24bit music you can listen to silence much louder!


Re: New version & ownership of (TT) Dynamic Range DR Meter: MAAT.digital

Reply #10
I tried but i seldom keep my foobar install recent and the foo_rgscan.dll out of the linked 1.1.5 crashes my 1.3.4 version. I may try later.
Is troll-adiposity coming from feederism?
With 24bit music you can listen to silence much louder!


 

Re: New version & ownership of (TT) Dynamic Range DR Meter: MAAT.digital

Reply #12
DROffline MkII with R128 and A/85 has been released:

MAAT DROffline MkII
XLD // ALAC // OGG VORBIS

Re: New version & ownership of (TT) Dynamic Range DR Meter: MAAT.digital

Reply #13
> MAAT DROffline MkII

Until the standard (algorithm description) is made publicly available, I do not approve this software and this standard, and encourage everyone to do the same (and use the "old" measurement standard, which was successfully reverse-engineered and implemented in free software). 
This one is a rather sick attempt to sell proprietary software to the victims of the loudness war.
a fan of AutoEq + Meier Crossfeed

Re: New version & ownership of (TT) Dynamic Range DR Meter: MAAT.digital

Reply #14
...except that the "old" measurement was crude and pretty much worthless, leading people to believe that vinyl releases were sourced from different mastering than CD releases, which in many cases weren't.

While you may be new to the discussion, this is hardly news.

Re: New version & ownership of (TT) Dynamic Range DR Meter: MAAT.digital

Reply #15
It was more or less a common knowledge that it's not applicable to vinyl. Some people unfortunately didn't get that, I agree that it's bad…
But for digital records I wouldn't say that it was pretty much worthless as it allowed to estimate the overall amount of damage done to a record.
It can be improved, sure, but is it worth giving up software freedom again for this?

By the way, if someone has got an idea what the new measurement algorithm could be actually doing, I'd happily implement that in code as free software.
a fan of AutoEq + Meier Crossfeed

Re: New version & ownership of (TT) Dynamic Range DR Meter: MAAT.digital

Reply #16
but is it worth giving up software freedom again for this?
It is worth no less now that is no longer free; not to me, anyway.

Re: New version & ownership of (TT) Dynamic Range DR Meter: MAAT.digital

Reply #17
The EBU Loudness Range Standard (LRA) looks good to me "on paper".   I haven't done any experiments, and I don't think you can boil-down "musical dynamics" to a single number for all performances/recordings.   But it does use loudness  (not just peak & average amplitude) and it is a published standard.

Quote
LRA is defined as the difference between the estimates of the 10th and the 95th percentiles of the distribution. The lower percentile of 10%, can, for example, prevent the fade-out of a music track from dominating Loudness Range. The upper percentile of 95% ensures that a single unusually loud sound, such as a gunshot in a movie, cannot by itself be responsible for a large Loudness Range.

Re: New version & ownership of (TT) Dynamic Range DR Meter: MAAT.digital

Reply #18
With a long integration time of 3 seconds, LRA measures 'macro' dynamics, whereas DR Meter measures 'micro' dynamics.

A shortcoming of DR is its reliance on instantaneous peak level. While RMS power, whether perceptually weighted or not, is stable, and measures nearly the same as the signal is equalized, DC-highpassed, phase shifted, resampled, passed through crossovers and speakers, the peaks change unpredictably. A proposed Peak to Short-Term Loudness Ratio is even worse, because it takes the intersample peak into account, which consists of ultra high frequencies of little significance, and inflates the measurement of squashed music.

Might a better solution be to somehow integrate a near momentary loudness power level with a short window (10-50 ms), and relate that to the short-term loudness (3 seconds)?

A discussion of the MAAT DR meter on KVR Audio. It hasn't been well received, overpriced, of little practical usefulness, and features invasive copy protection. I do not know if the offline version has copy protection.

The conventional DR reading, in my experience, sets a limit on the pontential quality. While a recording with DR8 or less can't possibly be good, those with higher score could be either.

Some examples of LRA and DR:

Code: [Select]
Gary Moore - Still Got the Blues - LRA 3.1 dB  DR13, RG(R128) -0.07 dB
Oasis - Don't Look Back in Anger - LRA 4.9 dB   DR5, RG(R128)   -11 dB
Oasis - Wonderwall               - LRA 14.6 dB  DR7, RG(R128)  -9.9 dB
Scarlet - Independent Love Song  - LRA 15.7 dB DR10, RG(R128)  -4.6 dB

No way Oasis sounds better than Gary Moore. Independent Love Song has large loudness variation throughout the song between verse and chorus.

Re: New version & ownership of (TT) Dynamic Range DR Meter: MAAT.digital

Reply #19
The conventional DR reading, in my experience, sets a limit on the pontential quality. While a recording with DR8 or less can't possibly be good, those with higher score could be either.
I'd say that the limit is at DR6 rather than 8. I have quite a few examples when DR7 records already sound just fine; in particular, the latest album by "Draconian" (a metal band from Sweden).
But with DR6 and lower I usually can hear some pumping or distortion. I can't say that this is the primary cause as there's usually no normal variant to compare (and otherwise I will just get the normal version and not bother comparing), but it seems to correlate.

Quote
Might a better solution be to somehow integrate a near momentary loudness power level with a short window (10-50 ms), and relate that to the short-term loudness (3 seconds)?
I too thought this may be a good idea. Not necessarily even 3 seconds, maybe even (10-20 ms) against 1 second. Ideally, we probably need volunteers with sensitive ears to make a reference record ranking and test the metric correlation against it.
a fan of AutoEq + Meier Crossfeed

Re: New version & ownership of (TT) Dynamic Range DR Meter: MAAT.digital

Reply #20
I tried but i seldom keep my foobar install recent and the foo_rgscan.dll out of the linked 1.1.5 crashes my 1.3.4 version. I may try later.
I know it's been a while, but I finally got around to using David Robinson's original (and IMO superior) RG algorithm in fb2k and initially had the same issue and found out why...

In addition to replacing the dll, you will need to create a new dll.cfg file in your AppData directory.  I originally blew the old one away, but since I'm also using the R128 version, I'm keeping a copy of each in order to retain their respective settings, which I do via batch script.

Re: New version & ownership of (TT) Dynamic Range DR Meter: MAAT.digital

Reply #21
For ReplayGain scanning with the original, superior algorithm, I use an old portable Foobar version 1.0.3 (no particular reason for this one). I also have the DR scanner in it, because I disliked that it appears in the context menu in place of "Copy name", and would start processing immediately if invoked by mistake. Maybe another version (with a distinct appearance) for special tasks is a solution for people who reported issues with the DR scanner plugin in the latest beta.

The Dynamic Range DB has been promoting the DROffline scanner with a large banner for some time, since they changed to the high-fatigue flat design, well before the MkII was released. Strange that they link to the first version of the tool, instead of the new one, and claim that it already is an improvement. It seems to me that the DB has an interest in promoting MAAT products. The trial version does come with 33 MB CodeMeter protection installer, so I didn't try it, but the website gives no indication that DROffline gives anything but the same old offical DR reading.

Re: New version & ownership of (TT) Dynamic Range DR Meter: MAAT.digital

Reply #22
Thanks for the tips. I don't have much new music as it used to be. Frontah still works welll for my needs and its RG with metaflac.
I never will pay a single cent for a DR meter btw.
Is troll-adiposity coming from feederism?
With 24bit music you can listen to silence much louder!

Re: New version & ownership of (TT) Dynamic Range DR Meter: MAAT.digital

Reply #23
…the website gives no indication that DROffline gives anything but the same old offical DR reading.
It does say that it's different if you go to the upload page. (And it doesn't explain in any way _why_ is is "superior"… I guess it works better to scam people.)

For ReplayGain scanning with the original, superior algorithm, I use an old portable Foobar version 1.0.3 (no particular reason for this one). I also have the DR scanner in it, because I disliked that it appears in the context menu in place of "Copy name", and would start processing immediately if invoked by mistake. Maybe another version (with a distinct appearance) for special tasks is a solution for people who reported issues with the DR scanner plugin in the latest beta.

The purpose of ReplayGain scanning and DR scanning are completely different.

First is to measure perceived loudness (to allow one to play everything at the same loudness easily). It doesn't say anything at all about the amount of dynamic compression (although when the RG goes below -9 dB, it's very likely the record had to be crushed to be this loud).

Second is to estimate how badly were the peaks in the record compressed, but it doesn't say anything about loudness. Although not very common, there are records which were compressed to death and then reduced in volume. (So they are both distorted&lacking in dynamics, and "quiet").
a fan of AutoEq + Meier Crossfeed

Re: New version & ownership of (TT) Dynamic Range DR Meter: MAAT.digital

Reply #24
Although not very common, there are records which were compressed to death and then reduced in volume.
If you're including records pressed before, say 1995, then sure; otherwise a citation is needed.