This post briefly gets into our consideration in preparing the final delivery of the three plus hours of mastered audio for the UK based publisher of the My Life with Chimpanzees audiobook.

First off, what’s LUFS anyway? LUFS stands for Loudness Unit Full Scale. Unlike traditional VU meters that detect loudness at a point in time, LUFS metering looks at the average loudness over an entire audio track. A great example of how you experience this and the way it came about is on TV. Before LUFS detection was readily used in TV broadcasting, every commercial would JUMP at you in loudness. The use of LUFS detection and limiting makes for less jumping for the TV remote at every commercial break. Additionally, all the present-day streaming media platforms employ a form of loudness detection where constancy between tracks is maintained for more pleasurable listening.

The so-called normalization of program material evens things out. Tracks that are too loud are brought down in volume. A soft track is brought up. However, the processes deployed can’t insure (in our case) the intentional delivery of a very dynamic and more interesting experience. And thus, our concern…

The challenge for us in producing this work was maintaining consistent audibility in listener experience across delivery mediums in this age of interconnectedness. We wanted to get it right so as to preserve the subtleties of Dr. Jane’s delivery of every word along with a dynamic experience we so carefully crafted.

We took great care to capture and preserve what she read and how she read it. Delivered as if having a fireside chat. The wisdom of her years imbued in every syllable and consonant.

It was tricky at times keeping all within a consistent listening frame while providing the dynamics in various sections to deliver the necessary visceral affect and impact. Indeed, we accomplished this.

We settled on -18 LUFS as the loudness delivery target with the intent of providing pod, bud and laptop listeners a dynamic experience, no-matter the device using nominal volume output settings. Again, that target and the way we went about crafting the audio was in part artistic yet grounded in the practicality of this highly mobile interconnected age.

A more than satisfactory listening experience for mobile that translates well on higher resolution audio systems for sure. 

In summary:
12 chapters varying in length from 11 to 29 minutes with approximate aggregate run-time of 3 hours 40 minutes.

Target Integrated Loudness, LUFS: -18 (all chapters fall between-18.1 and -19.4 LUFS) We determined -18 LUFS to be in the middle of the Industry’s acceptable range for spoken content, with many podcast targets between -20LUFS and -16LUFS.

LRA: 6 – 7.2; Loudness Range “LU” is the statistical measure of loudness variation inside a track or program.

Total Peak: -2dB

Dynamic, Kopfkino (mind cinema) by design. Our contribution to the enduring legacy of one of Earths’ most beloved and renowned conservators. To Jane with LUFS.

Thanks for reading.