#395

They’ve moved their target 3db once. The difference of a bot changing your master 3db (maybe if you’re caught on the change) is going to be way less drastic compared to just doing whatever you want.

#396

The thing to know is that some of these services only turn down if you are above the target (they don’t amplify). so for example with YouTube if you master quieter than their LUFS target it will sound quieter than other videos.

I use HOFA’s free 4U meter plugin which does both integrated LU, as well as offline checking (when you drag a file onto it). It can also allow you to turn one side of the stereo field down which is a nifty utility sometimes. I find LUFS a useful figure to know sometimes, but don’t master to a specific value. What works for me the best is having a target monitor setting I use consistently, getting close to -12 RMS on ableton’s meter (ball park) and then getting it to be the right volume now that I know that monitoring value

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#397

I think of LUFS numbers as a handy ballpark way to keep an album levelled fairly consistenty, given that I can’t do the whole thing in one session with the same “ears” throughout.

Of course perfect equality of all the songs on an album isn’t the goal. If something sounds right in context at -15 when everything else has been closer to -11, so be it.

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#398

Thanks so much for the help from everyone :point_up_2: there!!!
I am going with Youlean Loudness Meter 2 and at 39$ for the pro version it seams well worth it. And with it having the file drop analyze and being a visual person I’m just sitting here dropping songs into directly from iTunes and getting a good sense of what music I would like to compare to number wise and visuals. Im finding that for this project -12LUFS is about as high as I would like to go as its kind of chill kind of minimal kind of beats and kind of ambient all mixed up into one album and it was all written on the op-1 so its not the most hifi sounds to be amplifying.

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#399

This was new for me…

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#400

I’ve been recently using ADPTR AUDIO Streamliner for checking streaming service ”compatability”. I’m no mastering engineer and don’t really know anything, but I feel it gives me certain verification that the tracks should not suffer from streaming service loudness standards (at the moment) dynamics wise. For one master to rule them all I think I would prioritize Bandcamp because the biggest drop in quality comes from streaming bitrate, and focusing on Bandcamp would at least give me one place to stick best possible product, as Spotify even on Premium is quite notable difference to my ears compared to Bandcamp downloads.

#401

so if i put a song into this “Loudness Penalty” that is already on spotify it tells me its going to lower it by -3 db’s if i open spotify play the track and route it into ableton with loopback what my meters tel me is its has not been turned down and the number are like 99% the same as the master but maybe there isn’t something im understanding here.

#402

There’s a lot about this that I don’t understand. Most importantly none of us (not even loudness penalty) knows the algorithms the various distributors use.

The main thing I took from discovering this is that I should not try to push gain to be louder than everyone else anymore (actually never did). As far as I understand it, the streaming services with their algorithms have ended the loudness war, and music can go back to being dynamic again.

But as I said, I don’t know much about any of this :slight_smile:

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#403

maybe I’m misunderstanding it too, but I feel like if you don’t get a small negative number or 0 on this loudness penalty site and you are targeting one of these services, realistically, you are putting the music you are mastering at a “disadvantage” (as if you play stuff next to each other, music that is played louder is more “engaging” than music that is played quietly…same reason why when you A/B changes it’s very important to do so at the same volume to actually be able to hear the difference and not just pick the louder one) , as some/(all?) of these services do not turn things up to reach their loudness target, they just turn stuff down if it’s above.

so in essence, I think there still is a reason to master “loudly” (enough), it’s just that it’s not based on peak limiting anymore, it’s based on a more complex algorithm.

for some music/targets this is probably not a big deal at all, as “loudness” is not the most important thing, but I think it’s important to understand what is going to happen so you can make that decision.

also, if someone knows more and sees some fault in my logic here, please let me know

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#404

Ended the loudness wars or loud won and these are the rulez :wink:

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#405

When I’m mastering for streaming I always like having my music around -10lufs - still dynamic but not brickwalled, and a max peak of -1dB. I’m still surprised when I see people go louder than that. I’d rather streaming services make my music a little quieter than louder since I don’t fully understand the streaming compression algorithms.

I’m happy there is a general standard of -14lufs though. It’s especially helpful for music from different albums/artists playing b2b in a playlist or whatever.

#406

I believe this is very true. Maybe it’s more of a function of the music I’m into these days but I find there’s a lot of variety in the mixes and masters that I come across. I have set up a loopback channel on my audiocard software so sometimes I just record some snippets from Spotify to analyze them and I saw some surprising stuff, like mixes that are kinda pinched with very little low bass and high frequencies, mixes that are very compressed but with a very low ceiling and other general not by the book approaches.

#407

Just to chime in on this. AES publishes a pretty good read on the subject: https://www.aes.org/technical/documents/AESTD1004_1_15_10.pdf

They are to my knowledge the best standardization of LUFS, but yes the different streaming services could have their own standards. One thing to note is that on Spotify you can actually turn this feature off in the settings.

I personally settled at -14LUFS being the loudest I’m willing to go anyways. I have pretty decent HiFi listening gear and love the way music with a lot of dynamic range sounds(classical). So for most material I work on I try to capture that same listening experience. It’s actually hard to get to -14LUFS most of the time.

● It is recommended that the Target Loudness of the stream not exceed -16 LUFS: to avoid excessive peak limiting, and allow a
higher dynamic range in a program stream.1
● It is recommended that the Target Loudness of a stream not be lower than -20 LUFS: to improve the audibility of streams on
mobile devices.
● It is recommended that short-form programming (60 seconds or less) be adjusted by constraining the Maximum Short-term
Loudness to be no more than 5 LU higher than the Target Loudness: This ensures that commercials and similar short-form
content are consistent with the stream loudness.
● It is recommended that the maximum peak level not exceed −1.0 dB TP: to prevent clipping when using lossy encoders.

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#408

For that type of material (dynamic / classical) what is typically your minimum level when it’s not silence? I’m trying to figure out a range.

#409

It depends on the material. When you take the LUFS of a complete song, that just the integral(I LUFS) of the entire song. A very long quiet section will bring the that down quite a bit. I try to volume match each of the sections of the song visually peak wise so that there are smooth transitions. I’d say when doing the volume automation I don’t boost/cut any more than 8db at the most and try to normalize peaks landing between -16 and -8 DBFS when mixing and -6 and 0 DBFS when mastering. As with everything in mixing/mastering it comes down to balancing with the ears. If the music disappears in the quiet sections you have to compress the mix some, but compressing the mix doesn’t mean using a compressor.

So to answer your question directly: I don’t know. I guess maybe ~8db but I’m not too dogmatic about that? I have a meter plugin that gives either a LU range or dynamic range reading(i can’t remember which let me find out and circle back) and I try to keep that between 12 and 8(db/LUFS).

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#410

I just wanted to reiterate that these Integrated LUFS figures from the streaming giants are recommendations for streaming loudness normalisation, NOT “mastering targets”. They are not prescriptive figures. Serve the music.

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#412

I like the world I’ve been trained in, which is the film sound world. And it’s the same for TV mixing. The monitor level is fixed and you just mix so the program sounds as loud as you want. There’s lots of headroom, 20 dB over the 85 dB = 0 VU nominal level for each speaker. So the sound can get very loud momentarily or for too long. You keep intelligible dialog at around 0 VU and let everything else sound right in comparison. Unless you have a lot of battle scenes the loudness averages work out quite naturally.

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#413

I’m curious to hear folks’ thoughts about workflows with channel strip plugins? I’ve recently switched to UAD and am contemplating picking up a Neve 88RS on a good onboarding sale (plus coupon). I wanted to ignore that rabbit hole and I thought I could get similar results by combining plugins. But when I spent some time demoing it, I was really surprised by speed and interesting sounds I might not have come to in a cobbled approach mixing in post (especially the hysteresis knob in the gate/expander section).

Do you find yourself tracking with it? Using them mixing? Both or otherwise? Or do you find yourselves using hardware or multiple plugins instead?

#414

@Voiron27
I have several of the UAD channel strips (a bunch of their other stuff too). The thing I find most annoying is the way classic emulations mirror the compact control layouts of their hardware sources. The weird sideways orientations, multi shaft knobs, hard to read labeling, etc. It’s one thing when you have the physical piece of gear in front of you and it’s what you work on all the time. Maybe SSL/Neve/API console veterans find it familiar enough and the sound gives them that thing they’re used to, but I’ve never had that luxery. I haven’t found the work flow of a physical console property emulated in software…YET. I’d say the sound is there and a thousand other options as well. For the record, I mix everything “in the box” EXCEPT live dub techniques where saturation, feedback loops, extreme EQ, noise and happy accidents are the order of the day.

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#415

I thought this was an interesting interview. Although mastering engineers are disparaged a bit, I think the issue is less about mastering per se, and more about retaining creative control.

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