How Loud?, Measuring Loudness (Decibels) Options

[korektphool]

HI ALL!
This is what I want to do:
I have a sample (AIFF, mp3, whatever). I want to measure how loud the sound is, in decibels. Is there an application that can do this? Or is there a VST instrument that can do this once I load the sample in Cubase?
All help is appreciated.
PS In case you are wondering why I would want to do this, it is for a science project (I go to school).
Raghav Kaushik [KorektPhool]

[sethjacquay]

korektphool,

I don't know of any application that calculates the average decibel
rate of a song. There is probably a DAW that does it.

I would just dump the track into Soundtrack or another DAW
and watch what it peaks at and what its softest level is.

Also, isn't the decibel range dependant on the recordings wordlength? (i.e. 16 bit or 24 bit)

At anyrate, maybe you should write the program that does this.

Here is a hardware device that measures levels:
http://www.tnt-audio.com/clinica/spl-meter_e.html

and here a link to some documents on loudness
http://www.zainea.com/soundandmusic.htm
I would check out the selections in:
loudness & dynamics
maybe also try some of the documents in mostly psychoacoustics