BUTE Loudness Analyser 2 (Surround) is a professional loudness metering plugin for mixing and mastering, featuring a smart history overview, custom alerts, and presets for streaming and broadcast standards.
Purpose and Core Function
BUTE Loudness Analyser 2 is a loudness meter designed to help audio professionals mix and master to loudness standards, ensuring consistency across streaming and broadcasting platforms. It uses a proprietary algorithm to deliver accurate loudness readings, including True Peak, LUFS, and short-term/momentary values, presented on an interactive graphical interface.
The plugin clearly highlights areas in a mix that may require attention, helping users avoid delivery rejections or unwanted distortion downstream. It serves as a reference tool for balancing music, dialogue, and effects, making it suitable for a variety of audio production contexts.
Key Workflow Features
A standout feature is the smart history overview, which allows browsing up to 10 hours of loudness data. Users can navigate to any part of a track easily, with a custom alert system flagging areas that exceed user-defined ranges or True Peak overshoots, using red and yellow indicators.
Smart auto re-metering provides immediate feedback on how changes in the mix affect loudness, eliminating the need to re-meter the entire project. The plugin is fully resizable and includes a compact read-out view for efficient screen usage, with easy toggling between display modes such as Absolute/Relative Scale, True Peak/LUFS, and Max/Live.
Integration and Compatibility
BUTE Loudness Analyser 2 is compatible with VST, AU, and AAX (including Audio Suite) formats, allowing it to synchronize with most digital audio workstations. The Surround version auto-detects the DAW channel configuration and offers a dropdown to select mono, stereo, or surround setups, up to Atmos 7.1.2.
The plugin includes an IEC 60268-18 meter bar fallback for a familiar analog feel, and uses high-quality linear phase upsampling. It supports saving, loading, and exporting metering data, and offers reloadable session data for continuous workflows.
Practical Applications and Presets
Built-in presets cover major streaming and broadcasting standards, including Spotify, YouTube, Apple Check, Netflix, TIDAL, and more, with regular updates. User-defined presets can be saved for internal standards. This makes BUTE useful for delivering music to streaming platforms and for broadcast and post-production work.
The tool is ideal for long-form content, as the history overview simplifies navigation through extended material. It also serves as a learning aid for understanding loudness in relation to human hearing, supporting both beginner and experienced engineers in achieving professional loudness levels.
Key features
- Proprietary loudness algorithm with True Peak, LUFS, and RMS readouts
- Smart history overview for up to 10 hours of content
- Custom alert system with red and yellow flags for violations
- Auto re-metering that reflects DAW adjustments in real time
- Compact, fully resizable view for optimized screen space
- Presets for Spotify, YouTube, Netflix, Apple Check, and more
- Surround support up to Atmos 7.1.2 with auto-config detection
Best for
Mixing and mastering engineers working on music, broadcast, post-production, or games who need reliable loudness metering for delivery to streaming and broadcasting standards. Ideal for long-form content with its history overview, and for those requiring multi-channel support.