#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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