How Loud Should You Master Your Music?
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- Опубликовано: 28 июл 2024
- Mastering for streaming services can seem confusing, but it doesn't have to be!
In this discussion, I talk about the things to watch out for when mastering to make sure that your music sounds good on all the major streaming services. Please check out my message at the end and have a chat with me in the comments, I'd love to carry on the discussion.
🎧 Here is the link to get the loudness meter I use:
youlean.co/youlean-loudness-m...
With a high quality loudness meter, you don't need to second guess your mastering. You can just focus on making your music sound it's best.
0:00 - Introduction
0:40 - The Best Loudness Meter
1:20 - Loudness Discussion
2:02 - Why Does True Peak Loudness Matter?
3:30 - Why Do LUFS Matter?
6:30 - Why You Should Make A "Social Media" Master
7:30 - Full Mastering Checklist
9:53 - Important Final Note :)
🎧 Full Mastering Checklist:
1) You only need to make 1 master but I strongly advise making an additional master for social media promotion (more about that in a moment).
2) Keep the true peak loudness below -1.0dB to avoid clipping when your music is encoded to a lossy format. You can have a higher ceiling, and many professionals do (including me), but this will cause some clipping in compressed formats.
3) Almost all genres and styles of music can be compressed to between -12 and -16LUFS integrated (average) without losing impact and dimension. You can push this louder and have a higher short term loudness, but this will cause gain reduction to be applied. Louder masters can still sound punchy and exciting, and this is a case of personal preference. No one is right or wrong here!
4) Create a "social media" master with a true peak ceiling of -2.0dB. This will sound significantly better on applications such as Instagram and FaceBook which are notorious for distorted and crunchy audio!
5) Keep backups of your original mixes. You never know when you'll need to remaster them.
🌍 My Website / Contact / Hire me - michaelwynneaudio.com
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Хобби
Good insights as always. What is really an absolute true is that this topic doesn't matter much if you did not invest enough time on your composition, sound design, arrangement, etc.
Good music first, technical stuff later.
The is song always more important that the technical stuff. You're absolutely right!
That's not relevant,coz once you got to build good behaviour from scratch,on your way up,even if you are not from professional college,as former education,for us (bed room producer)it's so important to consider such,there is no short cut boy,coz if you embress it you ain't gonna get there,so stop lying yourselves,don't 'bargain cheap',thanks to A.I nowdays,RUclips and such,right informations are a lot,you can learn to the extent,even though in joints,but time will tell.gretings from East Africa Tanzania 🇹🇿
Music has to be as loud as it can be, period!
As mixer engineer we understand the psychological effect of loudness and frequency on our mind. Use a clipper and just beaware of not introduce unpleasant harmonics or distorcion.
@Akooa without loudness a song won't impact. Read carefully what I said. As loud as it can be. I never said make it so loud an destroy it.
I always master to -2 True Peak -8 LUFS for my music and It still sounds loud and dynamic. It is always good to leave a certain headroom as you don't know the quality of devices listening to your music.
Wow. I was really worried and didn't know what levels to master at, if we had to do different levels for each platform or.... thank you! This is a huge relief, thanks to your advice again!
Hey Michael, Thanks for this. I always look forward to your posts. So useful, and always interesting! You are one of the few youtubers that I always make sure to check every new video you make. Keep it coming, we really all appreaciate your knowledge, and the way that you explain things. Thanks a lot!
Really appreciate the fact that you make videos on the topics that you do, a lot of your videos cover things that most channels on youtube don't and you've helped me understand a lot of things, keep doin your thing man💪
Whenever I become too stressed or worried about my music production abilities or workflow, all it takes for me to get back on track is watching a couple of insightful videos from you. Thank you so much as always!
Just what was lookin for. Great timing!🙌
What a timing Michael!!! i was worried about the social media thing that you discussed and i had no idea why my music was sounding so bad on insta. YOU SAVED MY LIFE!!!!!
What a timing for you to drop this video! I was getting extrememly confused about the loudness. Thanks for helping the common crowd so much, Michael!
Thanks, if you needed help setting the loudness when mastering I'd suggest watching one of my youtube mastering guides too. It will have a lot more practical steps to follow :)
@@inthemix ohh I have, and they are extremely helpful! Your channel is literally my no. 01 go to channel regarding everything production and sound design related! Thanks very much for everything you are doing! :)
@@inthemix can you Make us the list of levels for Mixing before Mastering
@@nikkiejurnigan684 there is no such thing!
Mixing and mastering legend
Sage Audio too
Thank you for the video. I hope that now is clear for everyone, that mastering for platforms means the peak levels, and not the RMS loudness volume. Well explained. I was arguing on that with some stubborn people, and even now, they didn't get it clear. Good work. Cheers!
Sincerely speaking, I really appreciate you a lot Micheal, your tutorials, advise and videos has made a very great impact in my growing process and I'm very sure many producer here have the same experience.
Following your footsteps I've also started my own RUclips channel, building a music production community
Thanks In the mix
Thank you for the kind message. It's great the you are making helpful content too. Best of luck with your channel!
@@inthemix Thanks
Great advice and to-the-point as always! Love your content, Michael 🔥❤️
Every advice provide is gold , and is given in a very open minded way. Your really are one of the , if not the, kindest youtuber . The music making gentleman ;-) Because every end of year is the time of awards. I give you the gold medal of the most pleasant and interesting posts to watch. I wish you a high level , dynamic, uncompressed happyness for 2022.
Thanks a lot Micheal. It is indeed a quite confusing topic but the way you explain things it becomes so easier to understand. Take a bow sir!!
I'm very new to mastering, and this has helped so much! You're a huge inspiration to me. You are one of the main reasons why I want to become a producer! The valuable information you give for free is so helpful, especially for beginners like me! Thanks again!
Great video. Love the extra insights. One thing that was forgotten when dealing with WAV files if bit rate. Example: DistroKid will accept 32bit while CDBaby only accepts 16bit... regardless of where they're pushing the song. Levels are key but your WAV formatting is very specific based on distribution requirements. Keep up the good work! I tell everyone about your channel and it helps a lot of people.
Bro I love ur videos , you have a great sense of detail when it comes to giving info , I understand everything !
Always enjoying these mastering videos! I'm at a point where I don't even really remember how I was ever able to work without Youlean Loudness Meter 2 or Ozone haha. But for what I'm doing, that's more than enough! =D
I am a beginner in FL and I've learned many useful tips from this channel. Thank!
Another amazing video! Your videos are so awesome. Thanks for sharing your knowledge about music.
Great vid, was curious about this topic and you delivered the answers, thanks!
This is incredibly useful👌, thanks Michael
Alwayd straight to the point..
Very informative tutorial.
Mike never disappoint.
This Video Is Really Helpful Rhank You So Much Specially Social Media Part Most Of The Time Insta Reel Audio Quality gets Distorted & Most Of The People Don't Know How To Solve It 👏 Thanks For Helping & Getting This Point 😇
GREAT VIDEO. THANKS FOR THE SUGGESTIONS. I will be putting them to practical use. Cheers🥂
I am grateful for all of your tutorials you have made me a better engineer i study your videos like they are class assignments and I am learning everyday thanks to your insights i am very appreciative
Very helpful. Thank you sir. Much appreciated and just in time!
Great video explanation, have a song i am mastering currently and have always had trouble with this topic. Thank you.
This channel is gold! Thank you mate
Hey, on point as always. My way about it is that you shouldn't go for the limit left from the "loudness war". Actually no consumer stops a track and says "That is x dB quieter/or louder/ than my expectations and I want more". Mix and master like a consumer. 50 years ago there were very different standards for mixing and limiting and great music was created back then. Thanks for bringing this topic. Expert video as always. Thank you.
i think this is the best video on the topic in youtube, well done
I never get bored watching your videos you are a great teacher
I really love all your videos. Thanks for sharing this useful information with us.
Greetings from Peru!
I was thinking about this yesterday and boom! Thnkz Michael
Working with ozone really helped me urderstand this video in way I wouldn't some time ago. Thx!!
Man u don't know how much I respect ur tutorials...where were u 10 years ago when Noone didn't want to help teach me shit! Blessings from Toronto!
U should get a job with imageline
You are a living legend kind sir! Thanks for the help
Great video man. Helped me a lot. Keep it going ❤️
Thank you bro! Really needed this video
Damn, I was always wondering why songs I streamed on common platforms like Spotify sounded so boosted compared to my final mixes. I never knew that my uploaded songs would get boosted as well. Thanks for this vid! Really helpful!
Thank you, great and helpful content as Always
I've always have wonderd about this, I'm glad Micheal did a video on this.
one of the best youtube content out there thank you
Very interesting thanks for this! I’m trying to make something promotional for a sci-fi themed game and was trying to push it to “survive” on the social media platforms; second thoughts now of course. Thanks for the advice man 👌🏻🤓
Such good info, thank you for this!
Thank you for this exalent video !!!
Very helpful! Thanks for the amazing video!
Your tutorials have to be the best out there , can clearly understand what you mean, music I make is hard dancer music it needs to be loud, mines currently hitting -6.9 lufs , seems to loud that will be then lol
I always turn off normalization when listening on spotify, which most people don't do. So whenever songs are mastered to i.e. -14 lufs, it's much quieter than other tracks where loudness is just pushed to the max.
I have the same experience. I use Spotify without the normalisation (they also don’t use normalisation on web player or the TV app…). It’s quite frustrating which is why I discussed pushing the levels higher when you can :)
@@inthemix I pushed my song higher than -14 lufs and even with the Normalization switched on my song sounded really low in volume and it just couldn't compete with other music. I don't know if it's just Spotify, but -14 Lufs doesn't really worked for me and I have started aiming for a much higher number. The same Master sounded well on other Streaming services, but Spotify just disappointed me.
One last trick I tried to sort of research how loud the songs were, they were mastered at so high Lufs levels you can't imagine. Try using Virtual Cable and route the Spotify signal into your Daw.
@@thechaoscourt8836 Spotify uses replaygain, which was good at the time. But it doesn’t use LUFS as a measurement. Also read somewhere that It is notorious for being sensitive to skewed mixes. Like if you might have to much High or low end, it Will think the track is louder than it actually is. Hope that helps abit
Whenever I push music to platforms, I am pushing around -9 lufs and peaking at -0.1db in final mastering. Comes out pretty nice for me in all honesty.
This was really helpful thanks Mike 💪
Brilliantly explained thank you 🙏
Thank you, super helpful.
very helpful and informational as always
You my friend, are a life saver :)
Thanks for all your videos
Thank You Bro🙌🙌Very Helpful Video🔥🔥.
Thank you Michael 🤝
these are crazy helpful
Super helpful video, thanks a lot for the info!
I’m glad it helped :)
Nice tip! Now I know how to master in different platforms! Also when is your next sound design tutorial?
Yo Mic, I ain't know what to say, stay blessed 🌟
You too!
Thanks you for all these knowledge
Thanks for Sharing your know how with us
Always great! I had released a single and put the preview on my Instagram and yes it definitely clipped on there. So Thank you for bringing that up! Good stuff!
It certainly adds a crunch doesn't it! I'd maybe even try a test with a mono version for Instagram. I have had some people come forward and tell me that mono audio worked better for them! Maybe test it as a private story post and hear the difference :)
@@inthemix ahh mono would make sense too. that's a good idea! Thanks for sharing!
I don’t want to be uploading a different master to social medias for promo. If I lower the true peak from -1 to -2, I’ll have to decrease my dynamic range by using a limiter/maximizer, or by normalizing the volume down 1db. It makes much more sense to me to just always have my masters peak at a maximum of -2 for all platforms.
I’ve always loved your videos. They are very educational. Can you please guide us how to calibrate studio monitors properly? Thank you.
I really love this😊❤️❤️
lovely vid thanks!
It's rly a great information for me
My tiktok and instagram reels videos tend to have worst quality sound than RUclips even though I put the peak at - 1Dp.
Hope this - 2Dp tip will fix that up
Thanks for the info
Thank you so much !
Love the content as always. I have an idea that might interest you.
How about you create an instagram post with a song of yours at -2db TP and with -0.5db TP for the viewers to tell the difference. And maybe even on streaming platforms like Spotify by uploading same song with recommend average loudness and low average loudness(like -20LUFS).
Thanks for that
Thank you sir
Thank you so much
Interesting video even before I started.
Great vid Thanks
Thanks a lot 😀🙏🏽
Thanks again!
Im a Professional producer because of you 🔥🔥🔥
Thank u 😇❤️
lovely information 💟
Thank you very much 😊
I do doubt if I ever enjoy a teacher like you, I drop mathematics class because of my secondary School teacher 🤣 he confused ordinary adding numbers. I will be a great producer some day because of you thanks much❤️
Hey Thanks for all the great knowledge you put out there, I would like to know what's is the recommended loudness level for an audio to be submitted to radio and what formats, and sample rates
Excellent, informative video as always. You mentioned to avoid music with a big dynamic range for streaming services. I'm working on a neo classical recording with a huge dynamic range. I'm leary of compressing the performance as that is part of the magic of the piece and I've tried to be as transparent as possible with the mixing and mastering. Using automation, I've raised the quieter sections a touch and slightly tamed the louder sections. Do you have any other recommendations on how to handle this? Also, is there a streaming service we should avoid (or go with) for music such as this, with a big dynamic range?
That was a nice video 👍.
Amazing!!! Thank you very much...
Glad it helped, I’ll be doing a member’s livestream next weekend, more info to follow!
This is great advice
❤️Love u vro
Top 1# thing i always wondered
Thank you king
Hello! Great vid as always. To do two different masters makes sense…isolating one for social media. Though I write music, my main projects are voiceovers. Would I follow the same loudness guidelines?
Thank You ...🍻👍
Hey! Thanks!
Thnx for the video sir hope you are doing well....can you do a video on Fruity Love Filter? It would mean a lot
LEGEND !!!!!
Many thanks for these useful tips, Michael! I have some thoughts, as someone who has yet to upload music to a distribution or streaming service and is attempting to educate himself:
Avoiding "overly dynamic" music? So this is where we are, then. We've gone from "everything too loud" to "everything fairly loud and nothing quiet at all"! How bad is the situation though? I can think of a number of classic rock and grunge songs that might suffer under this criterion. "Smells Like Teen Spirit" springs to mind. Or are we talking about much larger dynamic ranges here?
I'm not sure about making my songs "competitive" either. What if I have a track that's *supposed* to be rather quieter? Is there any way to prevent streaming services trying to "turn it up"? Wouldn't it be nice if there were a way of telling them "yes, this is supposed to be quiet: keep it at -20 LUFS please"?
Of course, there's a whole other issue that rears its head if you're making an album that's supposed to be listened to in one go. Any tips on what to do in those circumstances? The last thing I'd want is for my careful inter-track balance to be meddled with in the name of conformity. Is it better to do what Kate Bush did on "Aerial: A Sky of Honey" and simply upload it as one long track?
Great!
Спасибо. tiktok, of course, cuts music strongly, I will try different methods, but RUclips is certainly loyal to the sound and transfers it better than others. I haven’t thought much about this problem yet, but it’s already necessary)