WAVES Loudness meter appears to be giving me inaccurate readings, whereas Logic Pro's Stock Loudness Meter appears to be giving me accurate readings, and I think I wasted money on WAVES Loudness Meter Plugin plugin?

[Soothistic]

So, I’m sitting here trying to get my audio up to YouTube’s Loudness Standard of -14LUFS. I bought the WAVES plugin about a few months ago as it was recommended as a good metering plugin, however after comparing it to Logic Pro’s Stock Loudness Meter appears to be giving me pretty inaccurate LUF readings.

Logic Pro X’s Loudness Meter Accurately reads -14LUFS Integrated, whereas WAVES’s Loudness Meter appears to Inaccurately read -17LUFS Integrated for whatever reason. Any ideas as to why? What am I missing?

I bounced the -14 LUFS audio from logic and put it in LoudnessPenalty in contrast to the Logic’s Loudness Meter, it appears that I’m pretty much meeting their requirement of -14LUFS. Still, WAVES in contrast appears to be inaccurate.

I also placed my -14 LUFS audio into another website called YouLean, it says -14LUFS, I ignore the numbers to the right of the decimal. Again, WAVES is inaccurate still in comparison reading at -17 LUFS integrated.

Also, just to drive my point even further with more proof, when I try to get my audio to -24 for example, same thing, Logic Pro stock plugin for the win? And it seems as though I wasted $30 on the WAVES Loudness plugin, UN-LESS I’M Missing something in regards to the plugin! Can someone else test out the their WLM against Logic’s Stock Loudness Plugin!? I need to know if it’s just my plugin or if anyone is having this issue? I’m going crazy trying to figure this out.

Logic Pro X’s Loudness Meter Accurately reads -24LUFS Integrated, whereas WAVES’s Loudness Meter appears to Inaccurately read -27LUFS Integrated for whatever reason. Any ideas as to why? What am I missing?

This is what my -24LUFS Integrated looks like in LoudnessPenalty It says youtube wouldn’t do anything to my audio. That’s because Youtube doesn’t normalize stuff lower than it’s standard loudness.

My -24LUFS Integrated in YouLean accurately reads -24LUFS, in comparison to WAVES which says it’s -27LUFS. which is wrong.

So, yeah, I’m struggling here, it seems the Logic Pro Stock Logic Plugin is accurate as can be, even when compared to other loudness meter websites such as LoudnessPenalty or YouLean. While WAVES is absolutely inaccurate, again, UNLESS I’m missing a setting!

If you can tell what I’m doing wrong here, please let me know!

[Soothistic]

UPDATE!

SO, I just want to point out that my issue has been resolved just now via a subreddit!

This user pointed out: “Are you sure the plugin is on the master and not on an individual track with the fader set higher? Are you sure you have picked the right mono/stereo-version of the plugin (Waves usually have two or more versions for that).”

My response:

"WOAH! That’s weird, I think you got the best answer here!

First off, my main narration track is set to +0.0dB

My background music, I’m using automation, starts off at +0.0dB then drops down to -16dB when my voice narration kicks in!

As for your point about the different Mono/Stereo versions, I put each of the plugins on the Stereo Out to and clicked through each one, and it appears that the “WLM Meter (m)” and “WLM Plus (m)” versions were the problem! It looks like the “WLM Meter (s)” and the “WLM Plus (s)” are giving me accurate reads! THANK YOU!

But I’m left confused though, as I did NOT record my Narration in Stereo, I recorded it in Mono, so why wouldn’t the Mono Waves Meter Plugin Versions give me a accurate readings!? Please explain if you have the time to do so!"

Here are the results!:

[Adi.Waves]

Hi @Soothistic,

Welcome to the Waves Forum.

Have you tried this with any other content you recorded, or existing content? do these readings occur in a specific session?

It is worth to try and record from scratch, making sure you are on a mono track recording a Mono Signal and verifying if the readings are the same with the Mono Component of the WLM plugin as you mentioned before.

If the readings are consistent on various recordings and do not fit your requirements, you can try and Contact Technical Support directly to get more information and assistance.