Did you ever experience a sudden drop in volume when converting your audio from stereo to mono? Chances are this has happened to you, as mono incompatibility is a common issue with stereo recordings. Auphonic now detects and fixes this for you automatically.

Phase correlation screenshot of Stereo Tool v3 by flux.

Why is mono incompatibility even an issue?

Let’s assume you just published your latest podcast episode. One day later your listeners are complaining about your episode sounding strangely thin and that they need to raise the volume significantly to hear anything. How ...

Today we are thrilled to introduce revised parameters for the Adaptive Leveler to move our advanced algorithms out of beta.
The leveler can now run in three modes, which allow detailed Leveler Strength control and also the use of Broadcast Parameters (Max. Loudness Range, Max. Short-term Loudness, Max. Momentary Loudness) to limit the amount of leveling.

Photo by Gemma Evans.

When we first introduced our advanced parameters, we used the Maximum Loudness Range (MaxLRA) value to control the strength of our leveler. This gave good results, but it turned out that only pure speech programs give reliable and ...

Following current standards, loudness normalization is applied regardless of the content of a production. Cinematic content, i.e. productions with a high loudness range, can benefit from dialog loudness normalization.
At Auphonic, we are introducing a classifier for automatic speech loudness normalization, and our processing stats now provide level statistics for dialog and music as well as the overall production.

Photo by Dima Pechurin.

Loudness of Cinematic Content

We have discussed the issue extensively, but it’s still true: getting the levels of your production right is difficult. It’s especially challenging when you work with music, sound effects and ...

Should I set the loudness target for mono podcasts to -16 LUFS or -19 LUFS?
This seemingly simple question comes up often and is the main topic of this blog post.

Photo by Franck V.

We are also introducing the new loudness normalization parameter Dual Mono and we're announcing the move of our Advanced Audio Algorithms to Public Beta!

The Mono Loudness Problem

"If my stereo production is loudness normalized to -16 LUFS, should I use -19 LUFS for mono (3 LU lower)?"
Unfortunately, this simple question is not that easy to answer - it depends on how ...

If listeners find themselves using the volume up and down buttons a lot, level differences within your podcast or audio file are too big.
In this article, we are discussing why audio dynamic range processing (or leveling) is more important than loudness normalization, why it depends on factors like the listening environment and the individual character of the content, and why the loudness range descriptor (LRA) is only reliable for speech programs.

Photo by Alexey Ruban.

Why loudness normalization is not enough

Everybody who has lived in an apartment building knows the problem: you want to enjoy a ...

In the classic loudness war, music and radio producers have been trying to create their recordings as loud as possible and loudness normalization was introduced to stop that. Now one can see the start of a new loudness target war, where podcasters set their loudness targets higher and higher, mainly triggered by high target recommendations of platforms like Spotify or Amazon Alexa.
In this article, we will show how to resist the loudness target war and still be compliant with major platforms.

Resist the loudness target war! (Photo by Nayani Teixeira)

What's the problem?

“Two or three ...

Last weekend, at the Subscribe10 conference, we released Advanced Audio Algorithm Parameters for Multitrack Productions:

We launched our advanced audio algorithm parameters for Singletrack Productions last year. Now these settings (and more) are available for Multitrack Algorithms as well, which gives you detailed control for each track of your production.

• Fore/Background Settings: keep your music/clip tracks unchanged and set a custom background gain
• Multitrack Leveler Parameters: control the stereo panorama, leveling algorithm, dynamic range and compression
• Better Hum and Noise Reduction Controls for each track
• Maximum True Peak Level setting for the final ...

In late August, we launched the private beta program of our advanced audio algorithm parameters. After feedback by our users and many new experiments, we are proud to release a complete rework of the Adaptive Leveler parameters:

In the previous version, we based our Adaptive Leveler parameters on the Loudness Range descriptor (LRA), which is included in the EBU R128 specification.
Although it worked, it turned out that it is very difficult to set a loudness range target for diverse audio content, which does include speech, background sounds, music parts, etc. The results were not predictable and ...

Lots of users have asked us about more customization and control over the sound of our audio algorithms in the past, so today, we have introduced some advanced algorithm parameters for our singletrack version in a private beta program!

• Leveler Presets are basically complete new leveling algorithms
• Maximum Loudness Range (LRA) Target to control the strength of our Leveler
• Maximum True Peak Level
• Better Hum and Noise Reduction Controls

UPDATE Nov. 2018:
We released a complete rework of the Adaptive Leveler parameters and the description here is not valid anymore!
Please see Auphonic ...

We are pleased to announce a new Audio Inserts feature in the Auphonic API: audio inserts are separate audio files (like intros/outros), which will be inserted into your production at a defined offset.
This blog post shows how one can use this feature for Dynamic Ad Insertion and discusses other Audio Manipulation Methods of the Auphonic API.

API-only Feature

For the general podcasting hobbyist, or even for someone producing a regular podcast, the features that are accessible via our web interface are more than sufficient.

However, some of our users, like podcasting companies who integrate our services ...