Did my first batch according to the prevailing wisdom spec - approx -14 LUFS-I / approx -11/10ish LUFS-S / Peak -1.0 - and jeez didn't they sound quiet.
But then I pulled out the files from last time, opened a new Reaper file, dropped various of the WAVs in and yep, the same. This is for digital distribution - for CD I'll do hotter.Anyway, in the process of spending all day trying to wrangle the tunes into those approximate parameters and then checking between them with my ears to see if they were all actually the same volume, I discovered a discrepancy between the YouLean meter, which a lot of people use, and what Reaper was showing in the render window. In some tunes the difference was several dBs.
Lots and lots of head scratching and googling - I used this same set up last time and didn't have the problem although I'm not sure Reaper had that level of detail in its render window back then - so it's probably not the gear, but something I'm doing.
And it was...
So I don't know about you guys but I'll usually put a volume envelope on the master bus and just do a fade out at the end, and that's it. Click the envelope button, select volume, put two dots in at the end, drag one down ... done.
What I didn't realise is that that volume envelope is post-effects chain. And the YouLean meter is in the effects chain, so the render is measuring after the effects, including the fade out, but the YouLean meter being in the effects loop isn't measuring any volume automation on the master bus 0 hence the differing readings.
Looking just a little further down there's a second envelope - Volume (pre-FX), thus putting the volume automation before the effects chain and therefore the two meters read the same thing and all of a sudden both meters are reading more or less the same thing...
Also noticed that somehow, sometimes, the master fader had been nudged out of the 0.0 spot - that didn't help either!
Phew.
