Normalising audio in PlayoutONE

PlayoutONE supports two methods of normalising audio: dynamically using LUFS or as a process when an item is imported into PlayoutONE.

LUFS normalisation

LUFS stands for Loudness Unit Full Scale and is a much more accurate way to normalise audio files. LUFS is used by Spotify, YouTube and Apple, to name just a few platforms, and to learn more read this excellent blog from Mastering The Mix. To enable LUFS in PlayoutONE, follow these steps:

• Every time a new song is imported into PlayoutONE, it's scanned by Monitor to retrieve its LUFS value. Therefore, you need to ensure Monitor is running at all times.
• Go to PlayoutONE > Settings > Thresholds Tab and tick the 'Enable LUFS Normalisation' box
• Alter the LUFS Playback level as desired. -16db is a good place to start, and you can decide whether songs overall need to be louder or quieter by altering this value. Once saved, the setting will take effect once the next item plays in PlayoutONE.
• If you need to alter the playback volume of individual items, you'll find a LUFS Playback in the options tab on the edit audio window of each item. This value will differ between items depending on their perceived loudness.

Legacy normalisation

While we now recommend using LUFS to normalise any audio in PlayoutONE, many stations still use our original normalisation process so we have kept it available to use.

As mentioned above, this is a destructive process which will modify the levels of any audio files processed. If you want to keep the original files as they are, use LUFS normalisation instead.

To normalise audio files as they are imported into PlayoutONE:

• In Auto Importer, open or set up a new import job to bring in music from a folder.

• Once the folder has been chosen, go to the Cart Details tab and ensure 'Normalise' is ticked under the list of properties to set.

  
  

  

• Press 'Save', and each new audio file brought into PlayoutONE from your specified folder will be normalised when imported.

To normalise previously imported audio files in bulk:

• Select the items you want to normalise from your Media Finder.
• Click the spanner/wrench icon to open the Bulk Operations window.
• Go to the 'Other Functions' tab.

• Tick 'Normalise Audio'.

  
  

  

• Press 'Run Operations' at the bottom of the Bulk Operations window.