Loudness Management

Topic Introduction

This working group was originally proposed in 2001 by Tom Hays to address "Dialogue Normalization" in games. Tom brought a proposal to IASIG (and to AES and other groups) but his efforts didn't get much traction until 2012 after EBU/ITU published recommendations for overall loudness management in the broadcast environment (2010).

At the 2012 AES Convention Tom presented his own findings and conclusions from more than ten years of discussion and research, and then in 2013 he hosted a presentation at GDC with audio experts from Microsoft (Xbox) and Sony (Playstation) each discussing their findings and conclusions. Sony's presentation included a set of recommendations that they were promoting for use in their studios around the world, while Microsoft's presentation included some compelling examples of why "normalization" of game audio might not always be practical.

After the GDC presentations, representatives from most of the major game studios met (as GANG's IESD group) to discuss whether there was a set of recommendations they could all agree on, and published their own recommendation in 2013 (revised in 2015).

In an effort to help inform the interactive audio community, the IASIG has collected the presentations and recommendations from each group and made them available for discussion by IASIG Members.

 IASIG Assets: