Fair loudness measures for live events

Proposal for live event producers and relevant stakeholders

Jonathan J Digby

digbyphonic@gmail.com
Digbyphonic Ltd // University of Derby

2025-05-18

About the author

Jonathan Digby is a professional touring sound mixer of more than 30 years experience.

He is equally accomplished in the roles of: Front-of-House engineer, Monitor engineer, concert sound system design, and sound system optimization.

He completed an audio engineering MSc in 2020/21 and is now into his second year of doctoral studies with the University of Derby.

Analogy: a matter of contrast

Imagine, if you will, that you are in a silent space, or in total darkness, or about to take a first bite of food.

There’s a blast of noise, light, or flavour…

Now imagine subsequent identical ‘blasts’, and their effect upon our initial perception.

The impact from a loud blast of noise is dependent upon what has occured before, during, and what happens after.

That initial impact is not retained, unless there is care and attention paid in creating a sensible balance.

A Race to the Limit

Without sensible and comprehensive management of a live show’s overall loudness balance it is easy for the sound level to quickly escalate up to a legally enforced limit, and to remain pinned there.

But this is often at the expense of sound quality, impact, contrast, and the overall audience experience.

A new measurement protocol

Research Paper

J.Digby and A.Hill, “Enhanced Sound Level Monitoring at Live Events by Measuring Audio Program Loudness,” Proceedings of the Institute of Acoustics, vol. 46, no. 4, pp. 1–8, 2024, Available: https://repository.derby.ac.uk/item/qv2v2/enhanced-sound-level-monitoring-at-live-events-by-measuring-audio-program-loudness. [Accessed: May 15, 2025] [2]

This research paper was presented at the Institute of Acoustics’ Reproduced Sound 2024 conference held in November.

The problem situation is resolved with the use of proven engineering tools for loudness normalization.

Peak normalization vs. Loudness

It is commonplace for each segment of a live concert to be presented up to a maximum peak acoustic level:

The graphic represents a series of programmes (vertical divisions).

Each has been presented up to
its maximum peak signal level:
this is peak normalization.

Loudness is typically inconsistent.

Loudness normalization

Application of existing broadcast loudness meters provides a shift from Peak normalization to Loudness normalization.

Here a measured loudness target level is used for each programme:
loudness normalization.

Overall loudness is consistent,
between and within programmes.

‘It is the average, integrated loudness of the whole programme that is normalised.’ [3, p. 7]

Loudness parity

Live acts and programme content of different musical styles and instrumentation may not sound equally loud when presented at a similar peak level, e.g. L_p_{, Aeq, 15 min}

Loudness parity means equal distribution by fair comparison up to a desired maximum loudness, regardless of content.*

The research recommendation uses an established and widely-deployed engineering tool to provide a fair distribution of loudness between all segments of a live event.

This allows optimum use of any legal sound limit, with the additional benefit of improved sound quality.[3]

Opportunity

A change in culture surrounding hearing health is underway.

Your future events are an opportunity to actively encourage an awareness and responsibility within individuals for the hearing of their future selves.

Make Listening Safe

An upper limit of:

100 dB L_p_{, Aeq,15 min}

This is a feature of the World Health Organization’s
Global Standard for Safe Listening Venues & Events [4, p. 9] published in 2022.

This is incorporated within the recently introduced certification available for individuals, venues, and events:
HELA initiative — Healthy Ears, Limited Annoyance.

Fair Loudness solution

The fair loudness protocol is ideally suited to any event that wishes to follow safe listening guidelines:

providing consistent and predictable loudness and contrast across all program segments.†
with noticeable improvements in sound quality, impact, and the audience experience.

Conclusion

If there’s to be a competition, let it be a competition of quality and not sound pressure level.

It isn’t necessarily the case that higher SPL equates to greater loudness, and vice versa.

The main benefit for stakeholders is parity of loudness across all show elements and acts – using a fairer, psychoacoustically correct measure.

It’ll be useful to calibrate an electrical signal to L_p_, Aeq, T , but what may be more beneficial is the improvement in sound quality.

Dr Bruce Wiggins PhD FHEA MAES PGCHE

A how-to guide

A self-contained HTML presentation with technical instructions for implementing the measurement protocol is available for download at this link:

Fair loudness measures for live events - SETUP

References

[1]

“Everything Louder than Everyone Else,” Wikipedia. Feb. 15, 2025. Available: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Everything_Louder_than_Everyone_Else. [Accessed: May 12, 2025]

[2]

J. Digby and A. Hill, “Enhanced Sound Level Monitoring at Live Events by Measuring Audio Program Loudness,” Proceedings of the Institute of Acoustics, vol. 46, no. 4, pp. 1–8, 2024, Available: https://repository.derby.ac.uk/item/qv2v2/enhanced-sound-level-monitoring-at-live-events-by-measuring-audio-program-loudness. [Accessed: May 15, 2025]

[3]

European Broadcasting Union, “TECH 3343: Guidelines for Production of Programmes in Accordance with EBU R 128.” EBU, Geneva, Nov. 2023. Available: https://tech.ebu.ch/docs/tech/tech3343.pdf. [Accessed: May 12, 2025]

[4]

“WHO Global Standard for Safe Listening Venues & Events.” World Health Organization, Geneva, 2022. Available: https://iris.who.int/bitstream/handle/10665/352277/9789240043114-eng.pdf?sequence=1. [Accessed: May 12, 2025]