Robert Nation, co-founder of EMAC Recording Studios and professor of recording engineering at Fanshawe College in Ontario, Canada, has adopted a suite of loudness, mixing, and mastering plug-ins from Nugen Audio to produce loudness-normalised mixes for a wide range of radio, film, and television projects.

Since 1979, EMAC Recording Studios has offered professional recording services, including music recording and mixing, mastering, and audio post-production to high-profile clients such as record companies, producers, artists, broadcast production companies, advertising agencies and corporate clients.

"Today’s digital and software-based technologies, such as Nugen Audio’s outstanding tools, allow me to hone in more on the creative process than ever before. And as the music industry continues to move away from the ‘louder is better’ era, these technology advances are enabling me to make a smooth transition to mixing and mastering for maximum dynamic range as opposed to maximum loudness," Nation said. "Nugen Audio is truly dedicated to offering tools that are not only extremely easy to use, with superb visual interfaces, but also deliver a high-quality result. Clearly, the company’s founders have a deep understanding of the challenges of audio loudness as regulations become more widespread and the loudness wars continue to abate, and their tools give me powerful advantages that simply weren’t available just a few years ago."

For loudness metering and management, Nation has opted for Nugen Audio’s Loudness Toolkit 2, comprising the VisLM visual loudness meter, LM-Correct loudness measurement and correction tool and ISL real-time true-peak limiter. Nation uses LM Correct as a standalone, final check on loudness and true-peak levels as a file goes to sequencing or delivery to the client. Also, VisLM and LM-Correct have proven to be crucial for delivering high-quality, loudness-normalised audio for streaming services, such as Apple Music, Spotify, and DAB Radio, which are continuing to adopt loudness normalisation and true-peak limiting techniques.

In addition, Nation has taken on the company’s full range of mix and mastering plug-ins including MasterCheck, Visualizer, Stereoizer, Stereoplacer, Monofilter, and SEQ-S.

Since 2000, Nation has also served as a professor of recording engineering in the Music Industry Arts programme of the School of Contemporary Media at Fanshawe College. The Nugen tools play a critical role in his curriculum to emphasise loudness issues and incorporate loudness tools as part of the essential techniques necessary for mixing and mastering in today’s production and post-production environments.

Jon Schorah, creative director at Nugen Audio, added: "For the better part of 40 years, Robert has been involved in music mixing, recording, mastering, and production – so he’s had an excellent vantage point on the technology revolutions that have taken place over the past decades. With the Nugen Audio toolset, he’s not only able to prepare his students for the coming world of loudness normalisation, but his own business is prepared for the smoothest-possible transition as these changes begin to fundamentally change the way audio professionals work."

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