I built a tool to measure perceived loudness of presets — PPI Analyzer

Community
,
1

I had a problem I suspect many of you know: record a few presets, compare them in a mix, and even with matched LUFS they sit at completely different perceived volumes. A dense crunch pushes harder than a clean tone at the same K-weighted number — the ear isn’t a meter.

I spent months figuring out why, and built a tool to fix it.

PPI Analyzer measures the perceived loudness of each take using a psychoacoustic Bark-band model (same principle as Zwicker’s loudness model) instead of stopping at LUFS alone. It gives you:

  • Correction in dB — how much to raise or lower each preset’s output to match perceived loudness to a reference you choose. Acts 1:1 on level, no magic.
  • Character score — a timbre-only reading (presence, dynamics, stereo width), fully separated from volume. If two presets have the same correction but different Character, it’s an EQ issue, not a gain issue.
  • Cut-through score — how well the spectrum is positioned to be heard in a dense mix.
  • 8-band spectral balance + concrete EQ suggestions (frequency, gain, Q — ready to dial into your Parametric EQ block).
  • Loudness curve over time with N50 sustain and N5 peaks.

The workflow: record the same passage through each preset (same take, no normalization on export), drop the files into the app, pick your reference, press Analyze. A few seconds later you have the correction to apply to the output block.

Works with any modeller — QC, Helix, FM9, Kemper, plugins — any DAW, runs directly in the browser (Chrome/Safari/Firefox) with no installation.

Selling it for €29 on Gumroad, single HTML file, lifetime access.

[LINK: PPI Analyzer ]

Happy to answer questions about the model or methodology. Technical feedback welcome.

6 Likes
4

This is amazing. Purchased. Thanks for putting in the work on this!

1 Like
5

If our workflow in the QC is scenes inside a preset. And scenes can vary in volume for example lead boost, etc. If we level multiple scenes for multiple presets could be a bit time consuming to track so much scenes in daw, put in folder, etc. Suggestions best practices? Can you do a youtube demo?

6

The thing that helped me most was stopping to think of calibration as part of the musical project. I keep a separate Logic session dedicated only to that, with tracks already named by preset and scene, and I only use it to record calibration takes and export. Open it, record, export, close never touch it again. That alone kills 90% of the mess.

The other thing is picking one single global reference for everything typically the rhythm scene of your main preset and measuring everything against that, including boost scenes from other presets. So you’re not chasing relative numbers for every combination, you have one fixed baseline and you always know exactly where each scene sits relative to it

For recording quickly: don’t do one file per scene, record everything in one continuous take and switch scenes every 10-15 seconds, then cut and export. Cuts the setup time in half.

1 Like