AudioLinter – Podcast Loudness Check & Audio Normalization

AudioLinter helps WordPress teams review spoken-word audio before publishing. It adds an editorial workflow to the WordPress admin so editors can upload or select an audio file, run automated checks, and review actionable quality feedback without leaving the post editor. AudioLinter is built for podcast, radio, newsroom, and editorial teams that need fast and repeatable audio quality control. Key benefits:

• Automated Audio QC for spoken-word publishing workflows
• Loudness normalization guidance based on podcast-friendly target ranges
• Silence Detection to catch Dead Air and playback interruptions
• Clear pass/fail feedback for loudness, peaks, and silent sections
• Optional repair workflows for plans that include audio fixing

Try it before you install You can check a file without installing anything: the free loudness check at https://audiolinter.com/tools/loudness-check measures an episode against Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube or EBU R128 — inside your own browser tab. Nothing is uploaded, no account is needed, and it is the same EBU R128 / ITU-R BS.1770-4 calculation this plugin uses. The plugin adds what a browser tab cannot: repair, handling many files, and the result stored on the post so the next editor sees it. AudioLinter uses an external service to process audio. External service details:

• Service endpoint: https://api.audiolinter.com
• Purpose: secure upload, audio analysis, status polling, and optional repair processing
• Required for core plugin features: yes
• Terms of Service: https://audiolinter.com/terms
• Privacy Policy: https://audiolinter.com/datenschutz

Depending on the feature you use, the plugin may send the following data to the AudioLinter service:

• your AudioLinter API key
• your site URL or domain for account and quota validation
• selected audio files for analysis or repair processing
• upload session metadata such as filename, mime type, and file size
• analysis task IDs, job status data, and result payloads

The plugin includes an explicit consent setting in the WordPress admin. Audio files are not sent for processing until a site administrator agrees to the Terms of Service and Privacy Policy and explicitly consents to external processing. An AudioLinter account and valid API key are required for analysis and repair features.

1.0.36

• New: the settings screen now points at the free browser check on audiolinter.com, for files that are not in WordPress.

1.0.35

• New: choose which platform you publish to. AudioLinter now checks and repairs against Apple Podcasts (-16 LUFS), Spotify or YouTube (-14 LUFS), or EBU R128 broadcast (-23 LUFS), instead of always assuming -16.
• New: individual posts can use a different target than the rest of the site, for the episode that goes somewhere else.

1.0.34

• Fixed: clicking Repair on a post that has no analysis to repair now explains that you need to run the analysis first, instead of showing a technical validation error.
• Fixed: background status refreshes no longer overlap on slow connections, so a finished result can no longer briefly flicker back to "processing".
• Security: additional output escaping in the admin panel and sanitising of the repaired-file download name, as defence-in-depth. No change to how the plugin behaves for you.

1.0.33

• Fixed: a result you just produced is no longer relabelled "Previous result" a few seconds later while showing the very same numbers.

1.0.32

• New: cancel a running analysis or repair. If you picked the wrong episode you no longer have to wait it out — the job stops, and the unit it used is credited back to today's quota.
• Fixed: the automatic check that runs after a repair no longer counts against your analyses. One repair costs one repair, not two analyses on top.
• Fixed: analysing a file from the media library works on sites that are not publicly reachable — local, staging, intranet, or password-protected installs. The file is read in your browser instead of being fetched from the outside.
• Fixed: choosing a file no longer loses your selection a couple of seconds later, which made "Analyze" report an unsupported format for a file you had clearly selected.
• Fixed: a repaired file is no longer shown as a failure. When loudness is on target and only silence remains — which the repair deliberately never touches — the result says so instead of showing red.
• Fixed: a repair that could not be verified no longer leaves the post stuck on "re-analyzing" forever.
• Fixed: a long filename no longer stretches the AudioLinter panel out of the sidebar.
• Fixed: repaired WAV files are labelled as WAV instead of MP3, so downloads and the preview player behave.
• Fixed: files too short to measure are refused with an explanation, instead of being reported as extremely quiet and offered a repair. Loudness needs at least three seconds of audio.
• Fixed: unsupported formats are rejected when you pick them, not after a full upload.
• Fixed: a partly uploaded file is refused instead of being measured as if it were complete, so a dropped connection can no longer produce a confident but wrong reading.
• Security: results sent back to your site are now signed with a key derived from your API key rather than the key itself, so the key no longer travels through the job queue.

1.0.31

• New: you can now upgrade to Pro from the plan card in the dashboard and settings, instead of only when a limit is reached.
• Changed: repaired audio keeps the sample rate and format of the file you uploaded. A 44.1 kHz podcast comes back at 44.1 kHz, and a WAV master comes back as a WAV instead of a lossy MP3.
• Changed: the plugin author is now shown as SchweizerleLab, the business behind AudioLinter.
• Changed: the backend URL field is named and described for what it is — a setting almost nobody should touch.
• Fixed: security — saving a pending task now checks that you may edit that specific post, not just that you may upload files.

1.0.30

• Changed: AudioLinter is now distributed through the WordPress.org plugin directory — install and update it like any other plugin. Pro is a property of your API key, so upgrading never means reinstalling.
• New: first-run guidance — a Settings link in the plugins list, a dismissible setup notice, and a short setup panel that disappears once your key is saved.
• New: the webhook token can be regenerated from the settings screen.
• Fixed: security — the API key and webhook token are now masked instead of shown in plain text.
• Fixed: security — messages from the AudioLinter service are escaped before being displayed.
• Fixed: the upgrade button at the quota limit now works without any prior configuration.
• Fixed: dead air is drawn as silence in the insights chart instead of at normal level.
• Fixed: files with no measurable loudness are refused instead of being "repaired" into noise.

1.0.29

• Critical fix: a malformed function call in the webhook-URL validation could cause a fatal error on admin pages when a webhook URL was configured. Present since 1.0.27; update immediately if you use webhooks.
• Fixed: the dashboard's "Detailed Insights" button was incorrectly labeled "(Premium)" — the panel is available on every plan.

1.0.28

• New: Loudness Range (LRA) is now shown alongside LUFS, True Peak, and Dead Air in the editor panel, the dashboard, and the post list — informational only, it does not change the pass/fail status.

1.0.27

• New: "Add to Media Library" button on the repaired-file card — saves the corrected audio to your Media Library without inserting it into the post.
• Fixed: on sites with "Plain" permalinks, status polling, downloads and bulk status failed with "No route was found". All plugin requests now work with every permalink setting.
• Fixed: the Download and Insert buttons disappeared after reloading the editor; the repaired file is now remembered.
• Fixed: the result card could overflow the editor sidebar and get clipped on the right.
• Fixed: a temporary connection problem while loading usage stats caused an HTTP 500 instead of a clean error message.
• Improved: the external-processing consent in Settings shows a clear "Action required" badge until accepted.

1.0.26

• After repairing loudness in the editor panel, you can insert the corrected audio straight into your post with one click — it is added to your Media Library and inserted as an audio block at the cursor (block editor; other editors get a Media Library confirmation). Completes the fix-without-leaving-the-editor flow alongside the 1.0.25 download.

1.0.25

• You can now repair loudness and download the corrected audio directly from the post editor's AudioLinter panel, without opening the AudioLinter dashboard. A "Fix loudness" button appears under a flagged result, and a Download button appears once the repair finishes.
• Cleaner editor panel: redundant help text removed; your plan and remaining daily analyses and fixes now show as compact, colour-coded chips (green/orange/red) with a hover tooltip. On the Free plan, fixing shows a short upgrade prompt.

1.0.24

• Security: your AudioLinter API key and webhook token are no longer written into the post editor's page HTML, where any user allowed to edit posts (not just administrators) could read them. They were never used in the browser — every backend call already runs server-side.
• Security: the bulk status view now only returns quality-control results for posts you are allowed to edit, instead of any requested post ID.
• Hardening: every plugin file now refuses direct access, and the plugin loads its own translations from the bundled languages folder.

1.0.23

• Security: the "trigger fix" action now verifies you can edit the specific post before starting a cloud fix, so a fix (and its quota use) can no longer be triggered against a post you don't own. The background call that remembers an in-progress task across page reloads now requires a valid security nonce, closing a cross-site request forgery gap.
• The loudness chart libraries are now bundled with the plugin instead of being loaded from a CDN, and the upgrade button opens the hosted checkout page directly instead of an external overlay script. No third-party scripts are loaded anymore.

1.0.7 - 1.0.22

• Two-pass EBU R128 loudness normalization for more accurate repair targeting (-16 LUFS / -1 dBTP).
• Reworked, fully branded admin and editor UI (warm surfaces, accessible focus/hover/pressed states, responsive and reduced-motion aware).
• Redesigned insights dialog: two-column layout, seekable repaired-audio player, per-metric colouring, and a clearer loudness-over-time chart.
• Staged upload/analysis progress with phase labels instead of a bare spinner.
• Branded drag-and-drop file picker with graceful no-JavaScript fallback.
• Numerous reliability fixes for media-library imports, larger files, status labelling (loudness vs. dead air), and result-panel flicker.

1.0.6

• Added an explicit legal consent flow for external audio processing.
• Added stronger external service disclosure for WordPress.org submission readiness.
• Improved admin UX for service-connected analysis workflows.
• Continued refinement of usage, support, and settings experiences.