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QC PDF Report ​

Orbit's QC PDF report gives you a clean, shareable document of a master's structure, waveforms and measured loudness. It was rebuilt from the ground up in Orbit 1.5.1 and refined in 1.5.2: readable pages with proper A4 pagination, polished loudness and waveform graphics, and a live preview so you can see exactly what you'll get before you commit.

The report is available in both Orbit and Orbit Pro. Standard gives you the full rebuilt report for per-track export; Pro adds multi-track export — one PDF per track, or a single album PDF with a cover and contents page.

Screenshot: the PDF Export window — track list on the left, a live A4 report preview centre, and document/content/loudness options on the right

Exporting a report ​

Choose File → Export PDF… (⇧⌘E). The Export PDF Report window has three columns:

  • Left — the track list. Select the track (or tracks) you want to document.
  • Centre — a live A4 report preview that re-renders as you work.
  • Right — all options: the Metadata and Full preset buttons, then Document Info, Content Sections, Loudness and Layout & Output.

For a single track, select it in the left sidebar, set your options on the right, check the preview, and export. That per-track report is the full rebuilt document and is available in both Standard and Pro.

Loudness in the report ​

Loudness figures may not appear straight away — the measurement runs as a background pass, so wait for it to finish before you export.

Scan Loudness

If a track's loudness never starts, right-click it in the left sidebar and choose Scan Loudness to kick off the measurement. Once a track has a measurement, the item reads Rescan Loudness.

To prepare a whole album at once (Pro), hit Select All at the foot of the left sidebar. In Standard, the foot of the sidebar reads Batch export is a Pro feature. Orbit scans each file using a 5.1 re-render — the standard most delivery specs measure loudness against. Each track then shows its measured LUFS, the 5.1 re-render and an ADM badge.

The loudness engine

Orbit uses its own loudness engine, not Dolby's, but it is ITU-R BS.1770 compliant. By default it pans with LBAP (layer-based amplitude panning — the same family Dolby uses); you can select VBAP instead. The 5.1 re-render is the reference many delivery specs use — for example, Netflix's Dolby Atmos home-mix requirements call for loudness and true-peak measured on a 5.1 re-render.

The loudness in Orbit is "Powered by Cota" — see Loudness and the Cota overview. For Atmos-specific delivery, always make the final check against official Dolby tools (or Cota once available).

The album workflow (Pro) ​

The album workflow

Select more than one track and a Batch Export card appears at the top of the options:

  • Separate files (the default) writes one PDF per selected track into a folder. The export button reads Export N PDFs….
  • Album (one PDF) combines the selected tracks into a single PDF with an album cover and, with Table of Contents ticked, a contents page. The album title is shared across every page, with each track's name shown beneath it. The export button reads Export Album PDF….

For separate files, the same card sets how much each PDF contains: Metadata only (the default; fast — programme metadata, no waveforms or measured loudness) or Full report (scans each track for waveforms and loudness — slower).

Screenshot: Album (one PDF) — a multi-page PDF with an album cover and contents page shared across every track

Live preview ​

Change anything on the right and the centre preview re-renders in real time, so the A4 pages you see are the pages you'll export. While it updates, a Rendering… indicator appears bottom-left; wait for it to clear before exporting so the PDF reflects your latest settings.

The toggle above the preview switches between a single column and a Pages grid, which lays out every sheet at once — a quick way to eyeball a whole album, contents page included, or all of a single track's pages (summary, bed waveforms and per-object cards) at a glance.

Screenshot: the live A4 preview mid-update, with the "Rendering…" indicator shown bottom-left

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