The other flaw is that you don’t subtract the peak level from your LUFS average. If your meter says -11 and it peaks at -3, your LUFS is -11. Chris Muth, former chief engineer at Sterling Sound. I lived the loudness wars from the vinyl era through CD and streaming.
as a pro mixer I can validate what this guy is saying. I've been mastering for years with -10dBFS RMS (very close to -10 LUFS) and I never bothered changing anything when the whole loudness normalisation algorithm appeared. its not just a number, more than this usually sounds a bit over compressed a bit harsh and below this is not compressed enough. we need compression for everything to sit well together, its not just a loudness thing and -10 usually gives me the right amount of compression without adding any distortion. loud and clear
Right, but if the song is already at -10LUFS, it most likely isn't going down any further. So, there isn't really any point sitting through the whole thing. The only time I do that, is if I am mixing my song and want to make 100% sure where it is. For this, he's just making a point.
@@whatmusiciwant you're assuming the song has no dynamic development. If you measure short-term LUFS in a loud bit then the real integrated LUFS may be considerably lower - and vice-versa.
Yeah, but if you have for example a track that has build up and breakdowns of 1 minute long and it's pretty quiet (-14lufs) and the chorus goes up to -5 lufs and it's only 20 seconds long, then by measuring the full song you won't get an accurate representation of how loud each section is.
Okay but how does this work for RUclips who literally lowers your track by like -3.4-7.5 db... how the hell are these producers beating the normalization YT has set to videos?!. . I've tried ALL of this and NOTHING works. The closest I've gotten is 0.1db BUT ITS STILL INCREDIBLY LOWER THAN THE ACTUAL MASTER.... the actual master is as LOUD AS IT CAN GET WITHOUT CRUSHING QUALITY. This shit is so hard and demotivating fr. Cuz it's just a huge slap in the face when you listen back in RUclips and it completely makes you look worst than a bedroom producer. I'm at my wits end with this crap, spent hours upon hours trying to figure this out and NOBODY can give a CLEAR answer. It's all vague and I get it nobody wants to release the sauce but for FS help the people who actually have talent and potential. @@CharlesLouisRosario
-14dB LUFS-Int is really silly to aim for. It destroys the aesthetic people want from a "master". When dynamics are reduced using limiting, soft saturation and clipping, it changes the overall sound, giving it more of a "dreamy" feel. For electronic genres, most people prefer this sound. Producing, mixing and mastering the same genres/styles in -14dB LUFS-Int totally changes the way it sounds. Yes, it'll sound "more dynamic", but that's NOT the way people want it to sound. Here's my aim:- Blues: -9dB LUFS-Int Rock: -8dB LUFS-Int Dance: -7dB LUFS-Int Acoustic (lacking bass): -11dB LUFS-Int Acoustic (with low end): -10dB LUFS-Int Country: -10dB LUFS-Int However, this changes depending on the tracks and production. These are just 'rough' aims.
i think -14 LUFS is still too loud for certain types of music. -8 LUFS?? that's crazy, it is songs that have no dynamic range and/or are squashed badly. Loudness can only be felt if there are quiet sections to compare it to. Pink Floyd and Led Zeppelin made amazing music that had way more dynamic range. today's music has totally gone to shit. it's music that is compressed to death so it can be listened to in a noisy environment. people don't really listen to music anymore.
LUFS can be deceiving. It depends on the musical content and how things are mixed and compressed. Compare some of those songs he mentioned with LUFS ranging from -5.6 to -9.9 and they all sound good and passable. In the end, compare, but use your ears!
One major contributing factor to the current loudness war was moving from tape based recording to digital. With magnetic tape, there was a “universal” reference level of 0 VU (volume units) equaling a known voltage level… in this case .7 ish volts into a specified impedance. With digital, since there was only a maximum level ceiling of 0 dBFS, reference levels now became whatever someone chose as their in-house standard, which is born out in all of the streaming services movie and programming soundtracks being all over the map. Originally, ‘zero’ reference levels were established because of the physical limitations of the medium used to carry the material (tape and vinyl can only be pushed so far before they compromise fidelity). With digital, fidelity as a goal has been compromised for data compaction and loudness. I miss ‘excellent fidelity’.
This is largely on point. As others have mentioned you do need to play all the source audio to get the Integrated rating. Point stands though, the -14LUFS is to normalise levels across a range of material for a good listening experience - it's not a target to aim for when mastering. Also worth noting different genres call for different LUFS rating. Most pop, rock and dance music suits a level of -8 or above imo (even when 'turned down' to -14), but if you push a nu-jazz or lofi hip-hop song to that level you will likely ruin it. I think the biggest problem here is that Spotify has (or had) a guide saying that files above -14LUFS will be turned down, and that this can cause distortions or audio degradation. In my experience, having mastered 100's of songs at -8 or higher that have gone on to streaming services, none of them have suffered any noticeable loss in quality, and I think what the crux of this video is about... is that if I had mastered these songs to -14 in the first place they would not sound as clear, powerful, punchy etc.. in fact, the client would be saying, bro, why is this so quiet compared to all the other tracks I have in my collection i.e. downloaded from Bandcamp, Beatport etc..
If your mix is louder than targed level of streaming service, they will only be lowered in volume, nothing more. There will be nothing to cause distortion, or degeneraton. That alone will not affect quality of original, so there you are good to go. Transcoding may, but should not. The client, on the other hand is the one who ultimately pay your bills, so you do as they say, but mastering -8 vs -14 LUFS alone only makes one louder if you play them side by side. On the other hand if you lower -8 to -14 and play them side by side ( thats what streaming services do ) you have a lot more potential in your -14LUFS mix, because you have a lot more dB of headroom. It is up to you, if you use this potential or not, but it is there to be used. Client on the other hand knows best, and if client wants louder, louder it has to be.
@@marcinfilip7405but if both songs peak at 0, but is -8 LUFS and one is -14, and let's just assume it's the exact same mix, the -8 master is more compressed, so even when turned down in volume to be at -14, it'll sound more like a "wall of sound", while the one mastered at -14 will have more dynamics. And depending on the song, one night be perceived as louder than the other. Could be the dynamic one with punchy drums, but also the crushed one with massive synth scapes.
The information in this video is completely wrong. This is not how you measure loudness and will give you a false result. The -14LuFS figure is NOT a peak measurement. It is the average value (integrated loudness) across your whole song. In this way some parts can be louder than -14Lufs short term loudness (which is what he is measuring) as long as you have quieter parts to balance it out.
👌correct. However his method does give a good ballpark, Quickly. Granted its not the "correct" way to do it. An i agree with you here that for the purpose of the video that would have been a better choice. As more people are familiar with measuring integrated that way.
@@Unders Sorry, I have to disagree with you. It very much does not give a ballpark figure because he is only measuring the loudest bits. This is why he thinks mastering to -14db LUFS is wrong when it isn't. Measuring the loudest bits gives him much too high a figure which is why he thinks other people are not working to -14 when they probably are if he onlly measured them correctly!
yes it's a bit misleading. still most people take the short term LUFS and use the loudest part of the song as a reference for the whole song. that's what a plugin like ozone will do if you use the master assistant, it will only listen to a part of the song. so this is sort of a global misundestanding here.
Thank you. I was scratching my head watching this "fake news" as well. But I'm just a B-level bedroom artist, so what do I know compared to this professional.
-14 predates the LUFS system as the LUFS calculation (over the whole song not the loudest bits) was developed to support it. Bob Katz the (yes v professional) mastering engineer was I believe pivotal to it’s development and -14 was in use via his K system K-14 long before the meter or the streaming services existed. It’s based on an 83DB calibrated room. Read up on the Bob Katz K system. I’m not saying you should master to -14 if aim is to chart a single just know that there is a lot of logic around the -14 number and it is targeting home listening and enjoyment over time.
I have noticed that when I measure the LUFS on an unmastered song (no master bus compression or limiting) and normalize the volume to around -1 true peak it naturally ends up very close to -14 dB LUFS.
The best way to learn modern mastering is use service like Tidal, route the audio through your DAW, place loudness meter on the track Tidal is streaming to. In Tidal turn off loudness normalization. Now you can see loudness parameters of any track you want to reference. Integrated LUFS isn't as useful as checking individual song parts. So listen to some song and then write out LUFS for intro, verse, chorus, build, etc. No approach other than above will get you to hone in on how modern tracks are being mastered. Also run a spectrum analyzer on the track. That way you gain insight into loudness and tonal balance.
Yeah, I went down the -14 Lufs road once, everything was quieter than what was out there, across the board. It's the usual gatekeeping from the music industry and it's people giving you BS info to keep themselves ahead. If you're making any pop oriented music, -7 Lufs. I don't care who says it too loud, I don't care who says it's clipping, these crabs are trying to keep me in a bucket and I refuse.
speaking of clipping, any reference track I pull in is +12-15db in the red in rms and -6 or so on the lufs meter. the rms makes sense but this guy is right on lufs
-0.3 dB for the limiter threshold for room for ISP and -10 integrated LUFS at least, loud parts -5 LUFS short term. Loud music sounds more intentional and more impactful.
Yup. I've been mastering at -8 for many years, because from all my testing, its the loudest I can get songs without introducing distortion or artifacts and still keep that punch that hits you in the chest.
1. Acording with your own measurment, all Apple measured songs peaked to -2.5 or -3 dB. This means that Aplle attenuated these somgs level by apx. 3 db. This means that for apple services, if these songs LUFS was adjusted 3 dB lower the song would have been sound same loudnes with extra 3 dB headroom. So acording with your own the best Lufs level is around -11 to -13 dB. 2. To my understanding, the streaming services measure the laudness level of the whole song, not just a 3 second loudest level. This means that the avarage level of these songs is even lower and -14dB starts to feel more the correct number. 3. To my knowledge Apple do not bring up level of quiter tracks, just limit the maximum. 4. The Lufs measure level according with listening curve. This means that tracks with more bass and less medium can be with higher RMS level, and this explains the non flat curve you have shown of the grammy songs.
Again, it's not 3 seconds he is fast forwarding through the video of the measurement, it's very obvious the songs don't sound like that and he is fast forwarding through the measurement so he doesn't get struck...
I would trust the Izotope article more than the meters of a guy running Apple music into his DAW via a soundcard and his own faders. If you buy the CDs or digital files of the chart-topping pop songs, they really do have LUFS values in single figures. The streaming services then turn them down to -14 LUFS so that they don't stand out as much alongside random songs on a random playlist. But the top pop songs really are compressed and limited to extreme levels, such that the actual masters (and CDs and WAVs) sound much louder and have much less dynamic range than music of the past. The point is that professional pop music is really loud. Spotify will turn it down, but the main reason our amateur tracks don't sound professional is that we don't compress, clip, and limit it as much as the pros do. A master at -14 LUFS just isn't compressed enough for the pop charts.
It depends. If you turn on Sound Check in Apple's Music App, the program material is about -15 to -13 dB LUFS. If you turn that off, you see, what's described in the video.
I have consistently been uploading my Master's at around - 8 to -10 and my masters do not get turned down the way they say. The key is to have a good meter that also reads your dynamics. If your Dynamics are in the green most of the time than in the red and you send in a master of that around -8 it would sound good. Also what this guy is saying is true because I would rip audio to use as references when I master and they are around the same volume levels. Here's my chart. For instrumentals master between -12 to -10. Songs with vocals -10 to -8. However monitoring your dynamics is still key. When using reference tracks match to lufs and RMS of those tracks to your masters. That will start getting you in the ballpark by matching the dynamic range.
@@snubdawg1386 MAAT makes a very good that will help when doing mixes and because it allows you to monitor your dynamic range. I will include a link so you can see how it works and you will understand what I mean UCoLCmff5dDTYVTdg4fJV4Bw
Why do you think your masters don't get turned down? Do your songs on, say Spotify, sound roughly equally loud as everything else? If they do, which I'm sure they do, they have been turned down to -14 LUFS as everything else.
@@astral_brain if your masters have good dynamics then when it gets normalize but the streaming services it will still sound loud. It is important to have a meter that monitors your dynamics. So when you are adding a limiter of clipper or both you can keep an eye on how the dynamics are being affected as you increase volume and depth. MAAT meter is perfect for this
Streaming services turn your -8 lufs track down to -14, and usually sounds worse than a master aimed for -14. I know from experience having a loud track that sounded great go onto the services to be flattened by the streaming normalisation
BTW this comment is right. You don’t measure LUFS over part of the song, the quiet bits are included in the calculation. That’s how streaming services do it and it’s in the standard.
@@RobHarrison it's disgusting on youtube, there's -14Lufs normalization, and it still have gap between music uploaders, some tracks are quiet, and other loud..... my track is -14,8Lufs and is quieter when i compared it with some artists, famous or not
Obvs RUclips won't turn your volume up so that 0.8 is not going to come back but 0.8 isn't that different and should not be so noticeable to cause you concern.
Thank-you for pointing this out. I was first introduced to the concept of a Crest Factor by Bob Katz book Mastering Audio (1st edition circa '03 - there are newer versions) and he advocated for a K-14 standard. I've found that as I and music I love has aged, the stuff that holds closer to K-14 and K-12 holds more of my interest over time than more compressed works. Yes, that's no way to win the chart in the current market place, but I'd put the thought out there for artists to have a mix of your work available that can be mastered to -14, -12, -10, -8, etc. dB So that when you and your fans are older, you have another way to re-vitalize your work.
Yup, when songs are super squashed they fatigue the listener much quicker. Same as youtube videos that are edited with ultra fast cuts. Within a minute or so I cant even follow whats happening anymore and just switch to something else.
Agreed. All these songs he went through are top of the charts modern pop. You think they care about dynamics lmao? I prefer breathing room in my music, so a -12 is where I'll be headed unless I'm mastering for a specific type of music
This is a great option! You can press your CDs using your -8dB LUFS master, and upload your -14dB LUFS to the streaming services. Radios play from CD so you'll get the radio mix for free. You can provide B side mixes at -14 so your CD customers can still get a decent quality listening experience. Just call the A side the radio edit, or whatever.
I usually go for -9.0 i-LUFS and it ends up around -7.5 or -8.0 . And I don't do this by squashing everything through a limiter. But I do use a limiter in the end chain to catch any random peaks from jumping out. Good video.
3:05 Most of the time, the commercials on the TV were louder than the movie, and when you fell asleep on the sofa, you jumped up from the sofa because the commercials were so loud. The TV stations used this to their advantage so that you could see the commercials
i usually create different files for each purpose. for example: artist - song title - 24 bit - 14 Lufs artist - song title - 24 bit - 9 Lufs artist - song title - 16 bit - 9 Lufs artist - song title - MP3 - 9 Lufs i've always assumed that uploading the 24 bit, -14 Lufs, -1 Peak would always sound 'full' in streaming services. but i've noticed that the compression that happens, when building up into -9 Lufs is where that "mastering magic" really shines. the thing is, every time i've tried uploading the -9 lufs - it doesn't sound as full as other songs that are mastered then brought down by the streaming services. Maybe it can be that one decibel, and I should try -8 Lufs and uploading that.. but it doesnt sound as alive as when i do upload the -14 Lufs. if that makes sense. it's nice to have the option to give away the louder version in bandcamp - or physical copies and digital .zips. and i've noticed that most songs are uploaded between -8 Lufs or -10 Lufs (using the stats for nerds option in youtube). the louder version just sounds flat compared to -14 Lufs. (In my trials of error lol).
This is actually what many releases seem to do now and historically too. Back in the day you'd never see the same master being used for album and single releases or for use in cinema or video backing. MP3 you really need 24bit to get the best quality but for CD you have to dither to 16. If I'm listening to the album I don't want ear fatigue at all or I'll turn it off but if I'm listening to a single then I can stand a bit more fatigue cos only a few minutes long.
Set up a re-record from Spotify feed and compare the loudness of your uploaded -14 song against other similar songs. You will probably find it very soft in comparison. The bit of compression that limiting adds makes a mix sound fuller and louder, then there is headroom, EQ, True Peak, etc. Point is I’ve uploaded the exact same track to Spotify thrice, every time getting louder, and it literally does play through Spotify louder as well per documented re-recording. And that’s re-recording with normalization on btw.
Clipping. Less limiter & Master Compressor, clipping and sidechain compression is key ;) Will sound loud without killing transienst and removing dynamics
Folks, I use no16 limiter which you can find free online. It allows you to compress, limit and clip your music and add more volume to bring your mixes to the desired lufs.
What most people totally miss regarding loudness normalization is the reason WHY they do it. It has nothing to do with streaming services being advocates of dynamics or wanting to end the loudness war. There's one simple reason: they want their users to have a good listening experience so that they keep paying their monthly subscription fee. A good experience is not achieved if the levels between songs are all over the place. There is no such thing as a loudness "penalty". They simply match the volume of your track to everything else, and this is beneficial for all parties involved. This means you can master your song to any LUFS you want and it will still sit nicely with every other song.
I dont think music under -14 lufs will be turned up though. In fact I know it because classical music on streaming platforms is still very quiet (because it t3nds to be mastered under -14 lufs)
@@joe4570 It will be turned up to -14 LUFS, or as much as the headroom allows. Here is an excerpt from Spotify's mastering guide: "If a track loudness level is -20 dB LUFS, and its True Peak maximum is -5 dB FS, we only lift the track up to -16 dB LUFS" Adding to the example above, if the original true peaks had been at -7 dB or lower, the track could have been turned up to -14 LUFS.
@astralbrain8265 presumably everyone is mastering to at least -1 db true peak though. So yes you're correct but if we assume everyone is mastering to at least-1 true peak then -20 stays -20
Fake information that will lead your songs to worse quality when uploading on platforms with normalization applied. Yes, mastering to CD or club levels is important when you go for live performance. But these days everyone is sharing their products via yt or spotify and those are really normalized to -14. So when you upload on one of these platforms song that was mastered to higher values, it for sure has impact on dynamics, volume and overral quality. Try for yourself and youll see. Learnig by yourself is better than listening to someones opinion, who obviously isnt saying all of the information.
nice one here. i agree and my magic number is and has been -9-ish, what i would say is - if you cut the subs off, you would probably measure the master at -14LUFS instead of -8LUFS
I'm new to mix and mastering, as a movie composer. I'm surprised by this video and take good note of it ! I'm also surprised by some comments which confuse me. You clearly show the LUFS from an analyses website and complete with a quick mesure in Logic so I don't understand why they argue that some additional maths is needed ! You know what, I will trust nobody and do the same as you did but with a measuring of an entire piece of movie music. Thanks !
Here what I focus on is, more to a specific genre of music, we should not look at Lufs in general based on level, but based on music genre, I experiment, for rock music and orchestra that focuses more on the details of musical instruments so that we can listen clearly we cannot make it past -12lufs, if ballad music is a smaller instrument we can raise it to -9/-8 lufs, If jazz vocal and acoustic we can raise it to the limit of -6lusfs
Dude. I just got into shoegaze and I am currently working on my first shoegaze/alt-rock album. So, thank you for this because I was mixing to -14 and frankly, it's shoegaze I wanted it LOUDER. I mean, "wall of sound". So, thank you for this. It seems, normalization doesn't matter, what matters it what you think fits your genre/album.
In Greece older songs on compact disc were -16 to -14LUFS and they have so crystal clear sound, they don't distort. For nowadays -12 to - 10 LUFS it's ok but not -8 or -7LUFS. Taylor Swift and Billie Eilish are around -8 and -6LUFS. Besides, they have increased the bass and subbass and they have cut the highs from many songs nowadays.
For CD mastering it was always shoot -9 dB average level with a max of -1 dB to avoid clipping DAC. Note that it hasn't changed from RMS. It sounds like most of the references you cited were within a dB or so from that standard. From what I've seen is that the streaming services will adjust the level down to -14 dB LUFS but won't adjust up to that level.
I master my podcast to -16db but that's cos it's a bit draining to listen at -8 or -10db for a long time. But it's a similar thing, 'pros' say master podcasts at at really quiet -23db LUFS, but that means you can't hear it on the Tube or with ear buds. Even for music podcasting, -16db is a little too quiet, but I found -14db a little too grating, but if I was more of a pop podcaster, I'd definitely bump it up. It's getting that sweet spot to not kill any dynamic range but also cut through the environment. I might go back to -14db LUFs at some point.
This is what Spotify is recommending today. I suspect major labels are now producing one loud master for CD and one quieter master for all streaming services but ultimately I don't care what they are doing because they released garbage for years during the loudness wars era. "Target the loudness level of your master at -14dB integrated LUFS and keep it below -1dB TP (True Peak) max. This is best for lossy formats (Ogg/Vorbis and AAC) and makes sure no extra distortion’s introduced in the transcoding process. If your master’s louder than -14dB integrated LUFS, make sure it stays below -2dB TP (True Peak) to avoid extra distortion. This is because louder tracks are more susceptible to extra distortion in the transcoding process."
I've been mastering the music sets for my Internet radio station at with a target of -16 LUFS. I almost never run out of headroom. I do some basic gain riding to keep listeners from reaching for the volume control a lot. I'm guided by the indications of a TC Electronic Clarity M stereo level indicator and soon will be trying a Dorrough 280D.
And by the way, who wants to emulate the crap the music industry is putting out? Their stuff would sound a lot better if they didn't squeeze the life out of it. But, these days, for the most part, people don't care about crappy sound quality. If everyone else sounds like crap, what's the incentive to be different?
So, if you take the LUFS of the loudest section of the song, doesn't this artificially increase your LUFS value? If you measure the whole track then your peak section of -8 LUFS drops down to -10/-11 or lower depending on the track. Surely what is important is dynamic range? If you master to -14 LUFS and your peak is -5dB then that's no different to -10dB with a -1dB peak. Also, just from a musical point of view, the streaming platforms' arbitrary choice of -14dB LUFS and -1dB peak (more or less) gives us 13dB of dynamic range to use with no penalty, so maybe this is an opportunity to re-educate ourselves and the public to having music with some actual dynamics? The -8dB 'standard' was for CD production and maybe we've moved on from that? We used to high-pass everything at 40Hz to stop the needle from popping out of the record. Mastering to -6dB just squashes the life out of everything and makes it sound crappy regardless of how well done.
that's what I'm getting from this; the streaming service will analyze the whole song; and use the integrated LUFS for the whole song to determine the "penalty". Which means the loudest part will be higher. Still it means we can have a bit of dynamic inside tracks and have loudest part at -9db or so and quieter at -18db or so.
They are using the integrated LUFs which is basically taking the average of the LUFS over the whole track from beginning to end. Momentary LUFS is the instant loudness number that will fluctuate quite a bit. But I agree with what you are saying about dynamic range. Everyone is talking about LUFS-I and Loudness, but I think the more important number is Loudness Range, which if you look on the pro examples he had here on this video were all between 5 to 10 LU and up, and that seems like a pretty impressive numbers to me because that is the one number I struggle a little with getting that high. I know my mixes are not squashed, I mean none of them sound like Death Magnetic or anything, But I think there is still room for improvement and that last little 5% is the hardest to get and usually the thing that separates great from good.
Exactly right Mastering to -14 LUFS / -5dBTP is no different than -10dB / -1dBTP; the crest factor is exactly the same; the LRA is exactly the same. This is literally what subtracting peak from LUFS in the video is unknowingly (or cynically) acknowledging: crest factor doesn't change if you simply turn it up
@@aholder4471 laughing at your Death Magnetic reference. That album really is a prime example of ridiculously bad squashed mastering. A shame, as it was musically decent.
I am by no means an expert but I will share the best advice I have found... Use your ears. The whole point of the normalization was to give dynamic material a chance to be somewhat balanced with the over the top loud material. Pop music (and Rap/hip hop) is practically designed at it's core to be loud, and by that I mean lack dynamic range. If it was highly dynamic, would it even sound like pop music? Rock n Roll generally sounds best when it is more dynamic, but still on the loud side. It's a wide category and it really depends on the style, and in the end it's whatever the artist wants it to sound like. But if you took AC/DC black album and reduced it's dynamic range further, it would lose something. You can buy the old master and try it yourself by running it through modern limiters. A fun exercise at least. So it's a decision at the end of the day first informed by the intent of the production and then by the engineer's ears. You have to have tuned ears through practice but you'll hear it. When I was trying my own mastering for an album I mixed, I found all the limiters I tried had a certain point where the song started to flatten in a way that felt like I was losing something. The material wanted to be somewhat dynamic for my ears. It ended up sitting right around K-12 (Bob Katz system) which pleased me to know I was in a certain ball park. But I didn't pay attention to that until after I had set it up by ear. Just make it sound good, and ignore the numbers. I think that's what the great pro's are actually doing.
correct me if I'm wrong but you're comparing the STREAMING LUFS Limits to a maybe digital or physical release where there are NO limits. You can't do "one master to fit them all", this you should always consider. And you really pick 2 seconds to get the integrated LUFS? Some kind of confusing.
In the early days of recording and mastering music was mixed so the needle wouldn’t jump out of the groove on a vinyl record, it’s when things went digital is when things got l stupidly louder
Many of the mixes you've mentioned here would sound a lot more dynamic and less fatiguing if they were mastered at closer to -14LUFS. -8 is still FAR too loud. I'm a professional engineer with four decades experience and am personal friends with a number of high profile mastering engineers including as Bob Katz, Ian Shepherd, Lucas Pimentel and Bill Roberts. We have been pushing for the -14LUFS standard for many years and finally, most of the streaming platforms including RUclips, Spotify, Tidal, Apple Music and others are normalising to -14LUFS. If you master louder to make your track louder by squashing the dynamics, it WON'T sound louder on the aforementioned platforms. All you will do is produce a sub standard release that could sound better if it was mastered at a more sensible level. I don't care what the chart toppers are doing. Too many are still caught up in the loudness wars mindset to some degree. The measurements you've displayed in this video are evidence.
My take. The loudness war is over in a sense. Thanks to the LUFs normalization standard, not every single record from every single genre is obligated to be mastered loud anymore like in the 2000s. It's all now fully up to the producer/artist's vision and taste. In other words, we can have a Billie Eilish record and a Silk Sonic record at the same time w/out having to worry that one is better because it's louder than the other. Me, I would master at somewhere in between -14LUFs to -8LUFs integrated. And it's up to me and my client to decide what we're going for.😊 The only issue is, not every streaming is fully implementing the standard. Case in point : RUclips Music 😅
Nice take. What do you think our true peak levels should be for our masters. I was surprised to see some pro songs with +1db true peak when we are told to be -2db true peak from Spotify. I wonder if the mastering engineers are bouncing out separate versions of the masters, one louder for cd quality and one quieter for streaming services like Spotify and tidal.
I heard another RUclips channel saying that the top engineers don't really pay much attention to True Peak. IDK if that's true but I'd like to find out.@@rmv9194
I did the same exercise a few month ago and decided my target would be -8 db integrated LUFS. Not -14! You just validated what i discovered on my own. Thank you!
-12 LUFS-I is a good balance between loudness and dynamic range. Mastering engineer Ian Shepherd recommends -10 LUFS-S (short term, loudness over 3 seconds) peak during the loudest part of the song as a starting point. That will usually end up around -12 LUFS-I for the whole song... MOST commercial music is much louder than that, but it actually wrecks the dynamic range to do that, and more and more people are waking up to that. So your university's advice is good for fidelity, but if you do this professionally you'll deal with annoying bands/managers/producers that want you to master louder.
@@CyanideLovesong I asked one of the lectures about this, and in short he said exactly that, although, he did mention when he sends stuff off to likes of abbey road they come back generally -9LUFS . He said recently he was struggling to get a piano piece above -10 without destroying dynamics , he sent it to a guy at abbey road and it came back -8LUFS and sounded amazing (as would be expected).
@@SolarPeel Yeah, in the end it's subjective. Also what numbers are we talking here? When you say -9, -8 ... Is that LUFS-Integrated? Or LUFS-Short Term at the loudest parts? There's a big difference. Here's an example of a song that wouldn't have the big dynamic bass that it does if it was more smashed: ruclips.net/video/HPTBaPZz27M/видео.html
@@CyanideLovesong LUFS integrated. I think he said you can have short term hitting -4/-5lufs , but I might be getting that wrong! Sure that’s what he said tho. And cool I will check that video out - thanks ☺️ edit: wonder if It’s worth taking the song and putting it through a compressor to hear the reduced dynamics.. might as well hah
@@SolarPeel Wow, that is in hardcore loudness war territory and I personally prefer music to be more dynamic. I think Ian Shepherd's advice is best, but he masters more dynamic than most engineers.
In short, for streaming/uploading to social media: aim for -14 lufs to -10 lufs. For anything else, you can go up to a -8 lufs or whatever feels right.
Should be dB or LUFS. They are different measurement units. For me more important thing is loudness range (LRA) and not integrated loudness. And range depends on music genre. Try master classical music to -8LUFS Integrated :)
I master classical without limiting to around -14 and it's very soft or quiet compared to say D&B radio. For classical it's fine. I've also mastered ambient/noise, and it would be a joke to settle for -14.
If you look at your own examples of audio files by 'the masters' you'll see that they all have different dynamic ranges-for the beginners, that's different ranges of high and low levels. All these files way before being mastered to any LUFS level have been severely tampered with by compressor/limiters and other plugins on individual tracks. So LUFS just joins the ranks of an academic argument. If you use 'perceived loudness' in a LUFS setting of say -14 it will only average the sound at that level, and the peaks and troughs will be above and below that setting. But if you set your level by LUFS at ITU-R BS.1770-2 then your averaging will be much louder, and your peaks don't sit at that level, like they can be as high as -3db. My recommendation is set your LUFS at whatever is demanded by whoever you are submitting your audio file to. But before you submit your file to LUFS you can mess with lots of compressor settings to suit your preference - compressor settings like 'classic soft knee' etc. The reason engineers can get away with louder LUFS settings is because they have compressed the crap out of their music beforehand--meaning they have brought up the soft passages to the level of the loud passages. So, after all that gobbledygook, I prepare files for a radio station, files that include mainstream songs and also ads and other manufactured audio, with lots of little tricks like compression, EQ and other effects way before LUFS settings. I use 'perceived loudness' set to -16 LUFS with no limiter.
Thank you, I used to mix my beats on -10 lufs or -11 and I'm alsways thinking why is my sounding lower, I starting looking in to it and now it's confirmed thanks to you!!!! ✌🏼✌🏼
Ya know? This does makes sense. Some of my songs I've mastered ended up having -14 LUFS be too quiet compared to reference tracks or listening to music in car stereos. The -7 and -8 area does a nice trim on the peak transients when maximizing.
If you master to -9.5 LUFS or higher, you are killing the song and basically dynamicly re-eqing (reshaping frequencies) the track to be unrecognizable based on the original dynamics of the track and the original EQ signature. This is the true irony of making things loud. - At -10 (and in some cases -11) LUFS the music is already LOUD enough without destroying the original dynamics of the song. - A song at -8 & a song at -10 LUFS can sound as equaly as loud if they are limited to the same final peak level limit (-0.2 for example). However, the main difference that will be heard is the +2dB shift in the mid range and high-end and the -2dB shift in the lowend. - When you push a limiter that hard (doesn't matter if you are using 1 or 5 in series) you are literally dynamicly tilt eqing the song. The sound is still equally as loud, It's just our brain and ears are more sensitive to mid range frequencies and up. - Try this then level match the two by ear and see for yourself. You probably won't like the lowend. However, this is one of the very reasons why clipping because so popular. - Even with all the above said, the most important thing is not just getting to a desired level. What's more important is......how you get there.
This is more due to the fact that most streaming services lower the level if it is too loud... the idea is therefore to master so loud that nothing is lowered. But as you said, that's nonsense! I don't know of any professional production that is that quiet. In my experience, newer productions are more like -8 dB LUFS to -11 dB LUFS. It's best to measure the integrated loudness over the entire song. This includes quiet and loud passages and then take this average value. I stick to reference tracks, i.e. artists whose audio quality I personally like. And if the reference track has -11 dB LUFS, I take this value... But I have never seen -14 dB LUFS on any track.
Like the last user said, you don't subtract the true peak level headroom from the LUFS level. If it's -8 LUFS, regardless of whether the peak is -2 dBFS or even 0 dBFS, it's still -8 LUFS. If it's being mixed to -8 LUFS, then it's not being mixed to -6 LUFS then just dropping the gain by 2 dBFS (it could be, but I doubt it, that's the whole point of LUFS metering... to be more consistent in loudness and allow for more dynamic range). Also, if you're ever playing this audio back on professional balanced audio interfaces built for +4dBu nominal level in/out, with +24dBu peak level, -8 LUFS is is going to be more like +16dBu norminal at the interfaces output, which is way to hot! Around -23 to -21 LUFS is needed for +4dBu norminal output. That still leaves you around 20 dB of headroom for peaks to fall in to without clipping in live or broadcast sound environments as well. That's why broadcast uses LUFS, EBU R 128, or a reference like -20 dBFS or -18 dBFS for 0VU, so it allows for peaks between the average (norminal) level and max peak level - while maintaining consistent loudness. LUFS was meant for the same thing, and -8 LUFS is not the headroom that the LUFS scale was designed to help fix - less compression and more dynamic range (closer to live but without clipping peaks from one source material to the next while delivering the same "loudness"). That's why most LUFS meters have a target reference line of -23 LUFS on them. Broadcasters have been using -20dBFS for 0VU for decades for the same reason, playback/record headroom differences between average and peak level on balanced analogue gear. But do you think 99% of self professed audio engineers or mastering engineers understand these basics, NOPE. Because they're all using -14 LUFS or above - Once again, loudness wars vs technical common sense. Not everyone listens on cheap consumer devices where distortion they don't care about. But if you are in professional balanced high end studio, -8 LUFS is waaaaaay too hot a signal!!!
GUYS!! LUFs is essentially a measure of dynamics. Master to whatever LUFs gives you the effect you’re after since Spotify balances them all out anyways
FYI: There are delievery standards e.g. the R128 broadcast standard ‘Loudness normalisation and permitted maximum level of audio signals’ by EBU is defined at -23 LUFS (+/- 0,5 LU) published November 2023.
The full story is that they "bought" each track/album. CD/lossless media has always been mastered to louder levels than streaming. There is nothing new in that. Most people do not buy their music. They stream it. It states quite clearly in the article that streaming is set to -14 LUFS. Simple answer is master to -14 for streaming but if you intend to sell then go for higher.
@@DavidCamposComposer Don't streaming services normalize tracks? I was under the impression they analyzed the whole song and took an integrated approach to how they would normalize. I think what BassBusMusic is saying is that you would have gotten a different result had you bought the CD like Izotope did.
There also are settings, at least in Spotify that allow a listener to bypass their normalization. Which could be the case in his tests, I don’t have Apple Music so I can’t test it myself
There's a lot more to it than you've stated here. Getting things up to those levels is a huge compromise and obviously not just a case of slamming into a limiter
I SO wish I saw your video before I spent so much time adjusting loudness on my tracks to -14LUFS. I was so happy to get all the tracks at -14, then listened in my car and was sorely disappointed. They sounded weak...I kind of did what you did, but just analyzed some songs I listened to and realized that none of them were at -14. Anyway, thanks for clarifying this!
you got thumbs down but you are 100% correct. I rmbr Rick Beato saying that -18db (I think? or 16, or 14) is WAY too low to send to a mastering engineer. can't rmbr exactly the # but yeah... most mixers are mixing way too quiet (and mastering also)
When someone listen to your -14db lufs song without volume equalization it's going to be a lot quieter than pro records. The loudness is in the mix. When you get better at balancing your mix you notice that it's easy to get etc -7db lufa loudness. This has been the biggest struggle for me personally for so long.
Actually as a producer, I say each genre has its own perfect LUFS level and that's why you are adviced to use reference tracks when mastering so that you can match the LUFs range of the genre
Super interesting. My background is in radio - a few things I wanted to mention - radio stations (in US) typically request production to -6db, or at least they did during the decades in your chart which were the years I was in radio. Then the stations would have a compressor to even things out. Also worth a mention is radio stations (and TV too) intentionally play the commercial material louder - they do it on purpose, as obnoxious as that is. This is not always true, but usually. Now I'm producing to Spotify and learning all about LUFS for the first time in my live, even though I spent 25 years producing for radio! I think we've reached the limit, where sound quality will just suffer if people keep pushing it. I do have a question still - wondering about if Spotify "normalizes" things, in other words, if you're citing the LUFS for some top hits, do they play at that level on Spotify without Spotify "changing" the volumes? I ask because sometimes I hear Spotify changes the volume after you upload your song if it needs volume adjustment, and here you're suggesting when I listen to Spotify I'll hear a big hit and it will be playing on Spotify louder, without any "adjustment." Also I thought of one more question! If I am producing a soft, dynamic song, soft folk or even classical with a lot of quiet parts, should I allow for a quite low LUFS-I reading, -20 or something low like that? Thanks! Thanks for the video!
I mix afrobeat. Which tends to be mastered around -10 I-LUF. When I compared the same song mastered at - 14 and matched the louder one to negative -14, I did end up with with louder peaks on the one mastered at -14, as expected and they sounded virtually the same. My only frustration is that I'm not entirely sure Spotify really lowers louder tracks the way they say they do. But I will say this, obviously with my results, it's better to master to -14, assuming Spotify does what they say they do. And mixing to -14 while simultaneously trying to get your peaks between - 1 and - 2dB takes real skill. And it does force you to better balance your mix and clean it up. I just wish we knew for sure what Spotify was doing.
This is fantastic. Thank you for this important information. There are some more myths in the audio producer (home recording) community. Especially these topics: - What difference do AD converter make really in comparison to the end product (the full mix)? - How big is the difference of inside or outside the box mixing compared to the end product (mastered audio file)? - Does expensive analog equipment really makes an audible different - again - compared to the sound of the end product. Not comparing single tracks. This is important, because between an analog equipped studio and a fully loaded pc or mac are huge price differences. Of course, not only the sound quality matters in the life of an mixing engineer but this is another topic.
All of the above can be overcome with experience. What can't be overcome easily is your monitoring system. In terms of sonics, you can't fix what you can't hear correctly. That means spending money on monitors and room treatment. Aside from that, experience and vision make good music happen.
In case new people wonder , No. same Lufs does not mean that any song with the same lufs will sound „as loud“ as another one. It is not that easy unfortunately. So don’t get crazy over it if your track is showing -8Lufs but sound much“quieter „ than the „Famous Hits“. Lufs does not take in account the Eq and overall energy balance of a song. That’s why I said what I said. There is more to sounding loud than Lufs readings
my take always -9LUFs well there's always some client who keep yell and push me to reach -4LUFs even the quality are garbage...................at least they said *P E R F E C T*
The new Queens of the Stone Age record, ran through my interface and meters, has the meters in the red nearly the entire time. LUFS around -6.0. Still sounds good, but I think that’s a bit ridiculous for a “professional” mastering.
@Beizeiten78 I agree, there was a Bruno Mars song, same deal in the red distorted way out of balance with the bottom end and it sounds like crap I could not believe they released this and someone said yup its good to go, As stated well many of the pros do it this way. Believe me many pros do not think it sounds good, they are just doing what the producer and label asked of them. I remember Bob Ludwig a mastering legend, said he would make 2 versions one how he felt it should be done and one that was asked of him so the client could then make the choice from there. I absolutely hate the loudness war mentality, loud is not better, sure if its done right it can sound passable but the true dynamics if the song had them will just no longer be there in the way it was intended. Take some classic music like Steely Dans Aja as an example ... the music is allowed to breath and have its dynamics kept intact, if this was mastered to -8 or some other insane LUFS it would sound like crap at least to those who know what it should sound like and are listening on a real system. So while yes its dependent on the music I do not like this whole every thing must be ridiculously loud if this one jumps off the bridge we must all jump of the bridge. Call me old fashioned but that's what your volume control is for you can make it as loud as you like. As for SAGE Audio that was ref in this video I have to say one thing and I have no affiliation with them at all, but have listened to his work and to my ear his mastering sounds fantastic open and punchy not some over compressed heavily limited mess, way more natural then most of the big release crap in my opin.
I totally agree with Beizeiten78; loud definitely doesn’t mean better. Has the loudness competition gotten so bad that we just put stuff out there without considering dynamics? What I here is a bunch of over compressed loud bass saturated music. Loud does not particularly make your music stand out. In my opinion and my opinion only a great song and arrangement makes the song. I’m not saying make the song where you need a hearing aid to listen to but at least in the competitive ballpark. I have no problem with -10 or 12 even. Tracks can still be loud enough but maintaining clarity and dynamics.
TNT likes to blast commercials during sports games. Though they intentionally make the volume of a sports game seem loud, so you turn it up, then as soon as there is a commercial the damn speaks blow out. just a rant. LOL.
You are right, some people complain that you measure the peak loudness in real time, but the mainstream DAW can measure the overall average loudness of the audio, and the results are still very close, most of them are above -11LUFS, and none of the most popular styles of music I have tested are around -14. The only confusion is whether the audio I downloaded is compressed by the platform?
After much testing I typically shoot for around -8 integrated. Sounds great in the car to me and I use some of my favorite albums as reference. I refuse to let streaming services dictate what sounds good. If they turn it down, it's their platform so that's on them. But when it's time for manufacturing to CD or vinyl, I know my release is going to sound exactly how I want it to.
So stupid, digital has an 80 db + noise floor, if you want it louder turn the volume, louder with the greater dynamics of less compression actually has a greater impact as the difference between the quiet and loud sounds are greater.
Spotify allows any song to go to any LUFS volume you want but the default listening settings in the Spotify app is to "normalize" the audio to the -14dB level... RUclips does NOT allow any volume level and sets every recording to the -14dB LUFS... So it depends on the service that is streaming... The best is to get a nice healthy volume and let the streaming services do what they do... That being said, to see any dynamics and punch taken from a recording for the sake of loudness is a shame...
good stuff. my only critique is that you have your multimeter set to peak/rms and true peak is different due to the inconsistency of limiters. sometimes you could be reading -2.0 peak and still possibly be clipping.
As long as you succeed at shortening the distance between your peaks and valleys without sacrificing the feel of dynamic range you might sound louder at -14 than other songs that reads -14 lufs and above I would guess. Its a matter of denseness. In other words it is not the length but the girth that matters
Glazed over some other stuff.. what you are missing is that spotfy or whatever system if it had to adjust your loudness.. this is a digital adjustment not analogue.. its just headroom.. yah but its not real numbers(analogue).. those bit relationships if squashed or stretched to another scale also digital and not real is going to introduce tone changes.. (all your fx and stuff is allready baked..) because of new bit avgs. to render as wide as possible or as close to representation system limit will result in the highest fidelity... Your phone as an example is not desighned to reserve headroom in the volume control(then it might have worked).. if they have to turn up your volume.. it can only be digitally done.
Your very correct I am struggling 14 I am not satisfy 14 when I am mastering I am not satisfying 14 thanks for information Grammy from Grammy Award winners
If you reference -2.5dB to true peak. Then it more realistice -1.5dB. But file is already encoded so you can ignore this true peak value. Most music is anyway not mastered on any loudbess standarts, but still to peak values.
The other flaw is that you don’t subtract the peak level from your LUFS average. If your meter says -11 and it peaks at -3, your LUFS is -11. Chris Muth, former chief engineer at Sterling Sound. I lived the loudness wars from the vinyl era through CD and streaming.
What peaks were being subtracted to begin. That part confused my. The RMS peaks or DB peaks or what was that?
as a pro mixer I can validate what this guy is saying. I've been mastering for years with -10dBFS RMS (very close to -10 LUFS) and I never bothered changing anything when the whole loudness normalisation algorithm appeared. its not just a number, more than this usually sounds a bit over compressed a bit harsh and below this is not compressed enough. we need compression for everything to sit well together, its not just a loudness thing and -10 usually gives me the right amount of compression without adding any distortion. loud and clear
Measureing LUFs for a couple of seconds is not integrated, integrated is measuring the whole song.
Absolutely!
Right, but if the song is already at -10LUFS, it most likely isn't going down any further. So, there isn't really any point sitting through the whole thing. The only time I do that, is if I am mixing my song and want to make 100% sure where it is. For this, he's just making a point.
@@whatmusiciwant you're assuming the song has no dynamic development. If you measure short-term LUFS in a loud bit then the real integrated LUFS may be considerably lower - and vice-versa.
@@elmoreastro2929 Exactly. Inegrated LUFS can only be acquired by measuring the whole song.
Yeah, but if you have for example a track that has build up and breakdowns of 1 minute long and it's pretty quiet (-14lufs) and the chorus goes up to -5 lufs and it's only 20 seconds long, then by measuring the full song you won't get an accurate representation of how loud each section is.
The Advice I've heard, and that somehow makes sense to me is "As loud as possible without sacrificing quality"
That’s right.
Okay but how does this work for RUclips who literally lowers your track by like -3.4-7.5 db... how the hell are these producers beating the normalization YT has set to videos?!. . I've tried ALL of this and NOTHING works. The closest I've gotten is 0.1db BUT ITS STILL INCREDIBLY LOWER THAN THE ACTUAL MASTER.... the actual master is as LOUD AS IT CAN GET WITHOUT CRUSHING QUALITY. This shit is so hard and demotivating fr. Cuz it's just a huge slap in the face when you listen back in RUclips and it completely makes you look worst than a bedroom producer. I'm at my wits end with this crap, spent hours upon hours trying to figure this out and NOBODY can give a CLEAR answer. It's all vague and I get it nobody wants to release the sauce but for FS help the people who actually have talent and potential. @@CharlesLouisRosario
-14dB LUFS-Int is really silly to aim for. It destroys the aesthetic people want from a "master". When dynamics are reduced using limiting, soft saturation and clipping, it changes the overall sound, giving it more of a "dreamy" feel. For electronic genres, most people prefer this sound. Producing, mixing and mastering the same genres/styles in -14dB LUFS-Int totally changes the way it sounds. Yes, it'll sound "more dynamic", but that's NOT the way people want it to sound.
Here's my aim:-
Blues: -9dB LUFS-Int
Rock: -8dB LUFS-Int
Dance: -7dB LUFS-Int
Acoustic (lacking bass): -11dB LUFS-Int
Acoustic (with low end): -10dB LUFS-Int
Country: -10dB LUFS-Int
However, this changes depending on the tracks and production. These are just 'rough' aims.
IF they want that, they can easily achieve it in the mix while having even more control over clipping, distortion etc...
i think -14 LUFS is still too loud for certain types of music.
-8 LUFS??
that's crazy, it is songs that have no dynamic range and/or are squashed badly.
Loudness can only be felt if there are quiet sections to compare it to.
Pink Floyd and Led Zeppelin made amazing music that had way more dynamic range.
today's music has totally gone to shit.
it's music that is compressed to death so it can be listened to in a noisy environment.
people don't really listen to music anymore.
-8 is not THAT loud lol, any good mix will easily get -8.
@@heddshot87 -8 means you have no dynamics.
@@moontan91 psychodynamics is a thing dummy
@@heddshot87 -8 is LOUD. period
LUFS can be deceiving. It depends on the musical content and how things are mixed and compressed. Compare some of those songs he mentioned with LUFS ranging from -5.6 to -9.9 and they all sound good and passable. In the end, compare, but use your ears!
One major contributing factor to the current loudness war was moving from tape based recording to digital. With magnetic tape, there was a “universal” reference level of 0 VU (volume units) equaling a known voltage level… in this case .7 ish volts into a specified impedance. With digital, since there was only a maximum level ceiling of 0 dBFS, reference levels now became whatever someone chose as their in-house standard, which is born out in all of the streaming services movie and programming soundtracks being all over the map. Originally, ‘zero’ reference levels were established because of the physical limitations of the medium used to carry the material (tape and vinyl can only be pushed so far before they compromise fidelity). With digital, fidelity as a goal has been compromised for data compaction and loudness. I miss ‘excellent fidelity’.
This is largely on point. As others have mentioned you do need to play all the source audio to get the Integrated rating. Point stands though, the -14LUFS is to normalise levels across a range of material for a good listening experience - it's not a target to aim for when mastering.
Also worth noting different genres call for different LUFS rating. Most pop, rock and dance music suits a level of -8 or above imo (even when 'turned down' to -14), but if you push a nu-jazz or lofi hip-hop song to that level you will likely ruin it.
I think the biggest problem here is that Spotify has (or had) a guide saying that files above -14LUFS will be turned down, and that this can cause distortions or audio degradation. In my experience, having mastered 100's of songs at -8 or higher that have gone on to streaming services, none of them have suffered any noticeable loss in quality, and I think what the crux of this video is about... is that if I had mastered these songs to -14 in the first place they would not sound as clear, powerful, punchy etc.. in fact, the client would be saying, bro, why is this so quiet compared to all the other tracks I have in my collection i.e. downloaded from Bandcamp, Beatport etc..
If your mix is louder than targed level of streaming service, they will only be lowered in volume, nothing more. There will be nothing to cause distortion, or degeneraton. That alone will not affect quality of original, so there you are good to go. Transcoding may, but should not. The client, on the other hand is the one who ultimately pay your bills, so you do as they say, but mastering -8 vs -14 LUFS alone only makes one louder if you play them side by side. On the other hand if you lower -8 to -14 and play them side by side ( thats what streaming services do ) you have a lot more potential in your -14LUFS mix, because you have a lot more dB of headroom. It is up to you, if you use this potential or not, but it is there to be used. Client on the other hand knows best, and if client wants louder, louder it has to be.
@@marcinfilip7405but if both songs peak at 0, but is -8 LUFS and one is -14, and let's just assume it's the exact same mix, the -8 master is more compressed, so even when turned down in volume to be at -14, it'll sound more like a "wall of sound", while the one mastered at -14 will have more dynamics. And depending on the song, one night be perceived as louder than the other. Could be the dynamic one with punchy drums, but also the crushed one with massive synth scapes.
Lol, its a fact bro...
The information in this video is completely wrong. This is not how you measure loudness and will give you a false result. The -14LuFS figure is NOT a peak measurement. It is the average value (integrated loudness) across your whole song. In this way some parts can be louder than -14Lufs short term loudness (which is what he is measuring) as long as you have quieter parts to balance it out.
👌correct. However his method does give a good ballpark, Quickly. Granted its not the "correct" way to do it. An i agree with you here that for the purpose of the video that would have been a better choice. As more people are familiar with measuring integrated that way.
@@Unders Sorry, I have to disagree with you. It very much does not give a ballpark figure because he is only measuring the loudest bits. This is why he thinks mastering to -14db LUFS is wrong when it isn't. Measuring the loudest bits gives him much too high a figure which is why he thinks other people are not working to -14 when they probably are if he onlly measured them correctly!
yes it's a bit misleading. still most people take the short term LUFS and use the loudest part of the song as a reference for the whole song. that's what a plugin like ozone will do if you use the master assistant, it will only listen to a part of the song. so this is sort of a global misundestanding here.
Thank you. I was scratching my head watching this "fake news" as well. But I'm just a B-level bedroom artist, so what do I know compared to this professional.
But Izotope's article comes to the same conclusion. Are you suggesting that Izotope doesn't know how to measure integrated loudness?
-14 predates the LUFS system as the LUFS calculation (over the whole song not the loudest bits) was developed to support it. Bob Katz the (yes v professional) mastering engineer was I believe pivotal to it’s development and -14 was in use via his K system K-14 long before the meter or the streaming services existed. It’s based on an 83DB calibrated room. Read up on the Bob Katz K system. I’m not saying you should master to -14 if aim is to chart a single just know that there is a lot of logic around the -14 number and it is targeting home listening and enjoyment over time.
I have noticed that when I measure the LUFS on an unmastered song (no master bus compression or limiting) and normalize the volume to around -1 true peak it naturally ends up very close to -14 dB LUFS.
The best way to learn modern mastering is use service like Tidal, route the audio through your DAW, place loudness meter on the track Tidal is streaming to. In Tidal turn off loudness normalization. Now you can see loudness parameters of any track you want to reference. Integrated LUFS isn't as useful as checking individual song parts. So listen to some song and then write out LUFS for intro, verse, chorus, build, etc.
No approach other than above will get you to hone in on how modern tracks are being mastered. Also run a spectrum analyzer on the track. That way you gain insight into loudness and tonal balance.
Your video is much quieter than the last 5 videos I watched here on RUclips, broski!
askers?
Yeah, I went down the -14 Lufs road once, everything was quieter than what was out there, across the board. It's the usual gatekeeping from the music industry and it's people giving you BS info to keep themselves ahead. If you're making any pop oriented music, -7 Lufs. I don't care who says it too loud, I don't care who says it's clipping, these crabs are trying to keep me in a bucket and I refuse.
speaking of clipping, any reference track I pull in is +12-15db in the red in rms and -6 or so on the lufs meter. the rms makes sense but this guy is right on lufs
-0.30 db always and forever baby
-0.3 dB for the limiter threshold for room for ISP and -10 integrated LUFS at least, loud parts -5 LUFS short term. Loud music sounds more intentional and more impactful.
In fact you do keep fighting the loudness war. Making bad masters. "I don't care who says it's clipping." ;-)
@@Mitsch76 if everything's clipping, nothing is.
Yup. I've been mastering at -8 for many years, because from all my testing, its the loudest I can get songs without introducing distortion or artifacts and still keep that punch that hits you in the chest.
What do you use on your master bus?
1. Acording with your own measurment, all Apple measured songs peaked to -2.5 or -3 dB. This means that Aplle attenuated these somgs level by apx. 3 db. This means that for apple services, if these songs LUFS was adjusted 3 dB lower the song would have been sound same loudnes with extra 3 dB headroom. So acording with your own the best Lufs level is around -11 to -13 dB.
2. To my understanding, the streaming services measure the laudness level of the whole song, not just a 3 second loudest level. This means that the avarage level of these songs is even lower and -14dB starts to feel more the correct number.
3. To my knowledge Apple do not bring up level of quiter tracks, just limit the maximum.
4. The Lufs measure level according with listening curve. This means that tracks with more bass and less medium can be with higher RMS level, and this explains the non flat curve you have shown of the grammy songs.
Again, it's not 3 seconds he is fast forwarding through the video of the measurement, it's very obvious the songs don't sound like that and he is fast forwarding through the measurement so he doesn't get struck...
I would trust the Izotope article more than the meters of a guy running Apple music into his DAW via a soundcard and his own faders. If you buy the CDs or digital files of the chart-topping pop songs, they really do have LUFS values in single figures. The streaming services then turn them down to -14 LUFS so that they don't stand out as much alongside random songs on a random playlist. But the top pop songs really are compressed and limited to extreme levels, such that the actual masters (and CDs and WAVs) sound much louder and have much less dynamic range than music of the past. The point is that professional pop music is really loud. Spotify will turn it down, but the main reason our amateur tracks don't sound professional is that we don't compress, clip, and limit it as much as the pros do. A master at -14 LUFS just isn't compressed enough for the pop charts.
It's good to hear someone actually say it out loud .... thank you !
It depends. If you turn on Sound Check in Apple's Music App, the program material is about -15 to -13 dB LUFS. If you turn that off, you see, what's described in the video.
I have consistently been uploading my Master's at around - 8 to -10 and my masters do not get turned down the way they say. The key is to have a good meter that also reads your dynamics. If your Dynamics are in the green most of the time than in the red and you send in a master of that around -8 it would sound good. Also what this guy is saying is true because I would rip audio to use as references when I master and they are around the same volume levels. Here's my chart. For instrumentals master between -12 to -10. Songs with vocals -10 to -8. However monitoring your dynamics is still key. When using reference tracks match to lufs and RMS of those tracks to your masters. That will start getting you in the ballpark by matching the dynamic range.
what do you mean with "If your Dynamics are in the green most of the time than in the red ...." why should they ever be in red?
@@snubdawg1386 MAAT makes a very good that will help when doing mixes and because it allows you to monitor your dynamic range. I will include a link so you can see how it works and you will understand what I mean
UCoLCmff5dDTYVTdg4fJV4Bw
Why do you think your masters don't get turned down? Do your songs on, say Spotify, sound roughly equally loud as everything else? If they do, which I'm sure they do, they have been turned down to -14 LUFS as everything else.
@@astral_brain if your masters have good dynamics then when it gets normalize but the streaming services it will still sound loud. It is important to have a meter that monitors your dynamics. So when you are adding a limiter of clipper or both you can keep an eye on how the dynamics are being affected as you increase volume and depth. MAAT meter is perfect for this
@@astral_brain ruclips.net/video/qRvjx5_Spn8/видео.htmlsi=dGxZDL6OCDCblIl7 a link about that MAAT meter plug in
Streaming services turn your -8 lufs track down to -14, and usually sounds worse than a master aimed for -14. I know from experience having a loud track that sounded great go onto the services to be flattened by the streaming normalisation
DSPs only turn down your track IF the listener is using NORMALISATION
you should be using Integrated LUFS across the track not a 2-3sec loud part so your information is flawed
no, just before his own measurement,
he went on the website where we can see again -10 / -6
BTW this comment is right. You don’t measure LUFS over part of the song, the quiet bits are included in the calculation. That’s how streaming services do it and it’s in the standard.
@@RobHarrison it's disgusting on youtube, there's -14Lufs normalization, and it still have gap between music uploaders, some tracks are quiet, and other loud.....
my track is -14,8Lufs and is quieter when i compared it with some artists, famous or not
@@Fritz2824 would you like me to take a look at your source audio wavs to see if I can identify cause of issue?
Obvs RUclips won't turn your volume up so that 0.8 is not going to come back but 0.8 isn't that different and should not be so noticeable to cause you concern.
Thank-you for pointing this out.
I was first introduced to the concept of a Crest Factor by Bob Katz book Mastering Audio (1st edition circa '03 - there are newer versions) and he advocated for a K-14 standard. I've found that as I and music I love has aged, the stuff that holds closer to K-14 and K-12 holds more of my interest over time than more compressed works.
Yes, that's no way to win the chart in the current market place, but I'd put the thought out there for artists to have a mix of your work available that can be mastered to -14, -12, -10, -8, etc. dB So that when you and your fans are older, you have another way to re-vitalize your work.
Yup, when songs are super squashed they fatigue the listener much quicker. Same as youtube videos that are edited with ultra fast cuts. Within a minute or so I cant even follow whats happening anymore and just switch to something else.
Agreed. All these songs he went through are top of the charts modern pop. You think they care about dynamics lmao? I prefer breathing room in my music, so a -12 is where I'll be headed unless I'm mastering for a specific type of music
This is a great option! You can press your CDs using your -8dB LUFS master, and upload your -14dB LUFS to the streaming services. Radios play from CD so you'll get the radio mix for free.
You can provide B side mixes at -14 so your CD customers can still get a decent quality listening experience. Just call the A side the radio edit, or whatever.
I usually go for -9.0 i-LUFS and it ends up around -7.5 or -8.0 . And I don't do this by squashing everything through a limiter. But I do use a limiter in the end chain to catch any random peaks from jumping out. Good video.
3:05 Most of the time, the commercials on the TV were louder than the movie, and when you fell asleep on the sofa, you jumped up from the sofa because the commercials were so loud. The TV stations used this to their advantage so that you could see the commercials
i usually create different files for each purpose. for example:
artist - song title - 24 bit - 14 Lufs
artist - song title - 24 bit - 9 Lufs
artist - song title - 16 bit - 9 Lufs
artist - song title - MP3 - 9 Lufs
i've always assumed that uploading the 24 bit, -14 Lufs, -1 Peak would always sound 'full' in streaming services.
but i've noticed that the compression that happens, when building up into -9 Lufs is where that "mastering magic" really shines.
the thing is, every time i've tried uploading the -9 lufs - it doesn't sound as full as other songs that are mastered then brought down by the streaming services. Maybe it can be that one decibel, and I should try -8 Lufs and uploading that.. but it doesnt sound as alive as when i do upload the -14 Lufs. if that makes sense.
it's nice to have the option to give away the louder version in bandcamp - or physical copies and digital .zips.
and i've noticed that most songs are uploaded between -8 Lufs or -10 Lufs (using the stats for nerds option in youtube).
the louder version just sounds flat compared to -14 Lufs. (In my trials of error lol).
This is actually what many releases seem to do now and historically too. Back in the day you'd never see the same master being used for album and single releases or for use in cinema or video backing. MP3 you really need 24bit to get the best quality but for CD you have to dither to 16. If I'm listening to the album I don't want ear fatigue at all or I'll turn it off but if I'm listening to a single then I can stand a bit more fatigue cos only a few minutes long.
Set up a re-record from Spotify feed and compare the loudness of your uploaded -14 song against other similar songs. You will probably find it very soft in comparison. The bit of compression that limiting adds makes a mix sound fuller and louder, then there is headroom, EQ, True Peak, etc. Point is I’ve uploaded the exact same track to Spotify thrice, every time getting louder, and it literally does play through Spotify louder as well per documented re-recording. And that’s re-recording with normalization on btw.
Looking at the dB change in music from the 80s to the 90s is crazy. No wonder they had their own sound back then
Clipping. Less limiter & Master Compressor, clipping and sidechain compression is key ;) Will sound loud without killing transienst and removing dynamics
in the article they never stated if the loseless files they bought were the same files that are uploaded to streaming services
they definitely aren't; look at the difference in peak in the two tests.
Folks, I use no16 limiter which you can find free online. It allows you to compress, limit and clip your music and add more volume to bring your mixes to the desired lufs.
i use pro L-2
What most people totally miss regarding loudness normalization is the reason WHY they do it. It has nothing to do with streaming services being advocates of dynamics or wanting to end the loudness war. There's one simple reason: they want their users to have a good listening experience so that they keep paying their monthly subscription fee. A good experience is not achieved if the levels between songs are all over the place. There is no such thing as a loudness "penalty". They simply match the volume of your track to everything else, and this is beneficial for all parties involved. This means you can master your song to any LUFS you want and it will still sit nicely with every other song.
Nailed it. I don't understand why people make this more complicated than it needs to be.
I dont think music under -14 lufs will be turned up though. In fact I know it because classical music on streaming platforms is still very quiet (because it t3nds to be mastered under -14 lufs)
@@joe4570 It will be turned up to -14 LUFS, or as much as the headroom allows. Here is an excerpt from Spotify's mastering guide:
"If a track loudness level is -20 dB LUFS, and its True Peak maximum is -5 dB FS, we only lift the track up to -16 dB LUFS"
Adding to the example above, if the original true peaks had been at -7 dB or lower, the track could have been turned up to -14 LUFS.
@astralbrain8265 presumably everyone is mastering to at least -1 db true peak though. So yes you're correct but if we assume everyone is mastering to at least-1 true peak then -20 stays -20
@@joe4570 Correct.
Fake information that will lead your songs to worse quality when uploading on platforms with normalization applied. Yes, mastering to CD or club levels is important when you go for live performance. But these days everyone is sharing their products via yt or spotify and those are really normalized to -14. So when you upload on one of these platforms song that was mastered to higher values, it for sure has impact on dynamics, volume and overral quality. Try for yourself and youll see. Learnig by yourself is better than listening to someones opinion, who obviously isnt saying all of the information.
nice one here. i agree and my magic number is and has been -9-ish, what i would say is - if you cut the subs off, you would probably measure the master at -14LUFS instead of -8LUFS
I'm new to mix and mastering, as a movie composer. I'm surprised by this video and take good note of it ! I'm also surprised by some comments which confuse me. You clearly show the LUFS from an analyses website and complete with a quick mesure in Logic so I don't understand why they argue that some additional maths is needed ! You know what, I will trust nobody and do the same as you did but with a measuring of an entire piece of movie music. Thanks !
Glad it was helpful!
Here what I focus on is, more to a specific genre of music, we should not look at Lufs in general based on level, but based on music genre, I experiment, for rock music and orchestra that focuses more on the details of musical instruments so that we can listen clearly we cannot make it past -12lufs, if ballad music is a smaller instrument we can raise it to -9/-8 lufs, If jazz vocal and acoustic we can raise it to the limit of -6lusfs
Dude. I just got into shoegaze and I am currently working on my first shoegaze/alt-rock album. So, thank you for this because I was mixing to -14 and frankly, it's shoegaze I wanted it LOUDER. I mean, "wall of sound". So, thank you for this. It seems, normalization doesn't matter, what matters it what you think fits your genre/album.
In Greece older songs on compact disc were -16 to -14LUFS and they have so crystal clear sound, they don't distort.
For nowadays -12 to - 10 LUFS it's ok but not -8 or -7LUFS. Taylor Swift and Billie Eilish are around -8 and -6LUFS. Besides, they have increased the bass and subbass and they have cut the highs from many songs nowadays.
RUclips doesn't gain up when you're under -14 LUFS, it only brings levels down once they pass the threshold of -1 dBTP and -14 LUFS
I noticed that too. I upload a song and it is way quieter than my mix, then I test download the youtube video again and suddenly it's -7LUFS again
For CD mastering it was always shoot -9 dB average level with a max of -1 dB to avoid clipping DAC. Note that it hasn't changed from RMS. It sounds like most of the references you cited were within a dB or so from that standard. From what I've seen is that the streaming services will adjust the level down to -14 dB LUFS but won't adjust up to that level.
I master my podcast to -16db but that's cos it's a bit draining to listen at -8 or -10db for a long time. But it's a similar thing, 'pros' say master podcasts at at really quiet -23db LUFS, but that means you can't hear it on the Tube or with ear buds. Even for music podcasting, -16db is a little too quiet, but I found -14db a little too grating, but if I was more of a pop podcaster, I'd definitely bump it up. It's getting that sweet spot to not kill any dynamic range but also cut through the environment. I might go back to -14db LUFs at some point.
This is what Spotify is recommending today. I suspect major labels are now producing one loud master for CD and one quieter master for all streaming services but ultimately I don't care what they are doing because they released garbage for years during the loudness wars era.
"Target the loudness level of your master at -14dB integrated LUFS and keep it below -1dB TP (True Peak) max. This is best for lossy formats (Ogg/Vorbis and AAC) and makes sure no extra distortion’s introduced in the transcoding process.
If your master’s louder than -14dB integrated LUFS, make sure it stays below -2dB TP (True Peak) to avoid extra distortion. This is because louder tracks are more susceptible to extra distortion in the transcoding process."
---- Garbage for years during the loudness wars era / 💯 ❤ !!!
I've been mastering the music sets for my Internet radio station at with a target of -16 LUFS. I almost never run out of headroom. I do some basic gain riding to keep listeners from reaching for the volume control a lot. I'm guided by the indications of a TC Electronic Clarity M stereo level indicator and soon will be trying a Dorrough 280D.
And by the way, who wants to emulate the crap the music industry is putting out? Their stuff would sound a lot better if they didn't squeeze the life out of it. But, these days, for the most part, people don't care about crappy sound quality. If everyone else sounds like crap, what's the incentive to be different?
So, if you take the LUFS of the loudest section of the song, doesn't this artificially increase your LUFS value? If you measure the whole track then your peak section of -8 LUFS drops down to -10/-11 or lower depending on the track. Surely what is important is dynamic range? If you master to -14 LUFS and your peak is -5dB then that's no different to -10dB with a -1dB peak. Also, just from a musical point of view, the streaming platforms' arbitrary choice of -14dB LUFS and -1dB peak (more or less) gives us 13dB of dynamic range to use with no penalty, so maybe this is an opportunity to re-educate ourselves and the public to having music with some actual dynamics? The -8dB 'standard' was for CD production and maybe we've moved on from that? We used to high-pass everything at 40Hz to stop the needle from popping out of the record. Mastering to -6dB just squashes the life out of everything and makes it sound crappy regardless of how well done.
that's what I'm getting from this; the streaming service will analyze the whole song; and use the integrated LUFS for the whole song to determine the "penalty". Which means the loudest part will be higher. Still it means we can have a bit of dynamic inside tracks and have loudest part at -9db or so and quieter at -18db or so.
They are using the integrated LUFs which is basically taking the average of the LUFS over the whole track from beginning to end. Momentary LUFS is the instant loudness number that will fluctuate quite a bit. But I agree with what you are saying about dynamic range. Everyone is talking about LUFS-I and Loudness, but I think the more important number is Loudness Range, which if you look on the pro examples he had here on this video were all between 5 to 10 LU and up, and that seems like a pretty impressive numbers to me because that is the one number I struggle a little with getting that high. I know my mixes are not squashed, I mean none of them sound like Death Magnetic or anything, But I think there is still room for improvement and that last little 5% is the hardest to get and usually the thing that separates great from good.
Your thinking is off. The izotope article showed the dynamic ranges of those songs.
Exactly right Mastering to -14 LUFS / -5dBTP is no different than -10dB / -1dBTP; the crest factor is exactly the same; the LRA is exactly the same. This is literally what subtracting peak from LUFS in the video is unknowingly (or cynically) acknowledging: crest factor doesn't change if you simply turn it up
@@aholder4471 laughing at your Death Magnetic reference. That album really is a prime example of ridiculously bad squashed mastering. A shame, as it was musically decent.
I am by no means an expert but I will share the best advice I have found... Use your ears. The whole point of the normalization was to give dynamic material a chance to be somewhat balanced with the over the top loud material. Pop music (and Rap/hip hop) is practically designed at it's core to be loud, and by that I mean lack dynamic range. If it was highly dynamic, would it even sound like pop music? Rock n Roll generally sounds best when it is more dynamic, but still on the loud side. It's a wide category and it really depends on the style, and in the end it's whatever the artist wants it to sound like. But if you took AC/DC black album and reduced it's dynamic range further, it would lose something. You can buy the old master and try it yourself by running it through modern limiters. A fun exercise at least.
So it's a decision at the end of the day first informed by the intent of the production and then by the engineer's ears. You have to have tuned ears through practice but you'll hear it. When I was trying my own mastering for an album I mixed, I found all the limiters I tried had a certain point where the song started to flatten in a way that felt like I was losing something. The material wanted to be somewhat dynamic for my ears. It ended up sitting right around K-12 (Bob Katz system) which pleased me to know I was in a certain ball park. But I didn't pay attention to that until after I had set it up by ear.
Just make it sound good, and ignore the numbers. I think that's what the great pro's are actually doing.
correct me if I'm wrong but you're comparing the STREAMING LUFS Limits to a maybe digital or physical release where there are NO limits. You can't do "one master to fit them all", this you should always consider. And you really pick 2 seconds to get the integrated LUFS? Some kind of confusing.
In the early days of recording and mastering music was mixed so the needle wouldn’t jump out of the groove on a vinyl record, it’s when things went digital is when things got l stupidly louder
Many of the mixes you've mentioned here would sound a lot more dynamic and less fatiguing if they were mastered at closer to -14LUFS. -8 is still FAR too loud.
I'm a professional engineer with four decades experience and am personal friends with a number of high profile mastering engineers including as Bob Katz, Ian Shepherd, Lucas Pimentel and Bill Roberts. We have been pushing for the -14LUFS standard for many years and finally, most of the streaming platforms including RUclips, Spotify, Tidal, Apple Music and others are normalising to -14LUFS. If you master louder to make your track louder by squashing the dynamics, it WON'T sound louder on the aforementioned platforms. All you will do is produce a sub standard release that could sound better if it was mastered at a more sensible level.
I don't care what the chart toppers are doing. Too many are still caught up in the loudness wars mindset to some degree. The measurements you've displayed in this video are evidence.
My take.
The loudness war is over in a sense. Thanks to the LUFs normalization standard, not every single record from every single genre is obligated to be mastered loud anymore like in the 2000s. It's all now fully up to the producer/artist's vision and taste. In other words, we can have a Billie Eilish record and a Silk Sonic record at the same time w/out having to worry that one is better because it's louder than the other.
Me, I would master at somewhere in between -14LUFs to -8LUFs integrated. And it's up to me and my client to decide what we're going for.😊
The only issue is, not every streaming is fully implementing the standard. Case in point : RUclips Music 😅
Nice take. What do you think our true peak levels should be for our masters. I was surprised to see some pro songs with +1db true peak when we are told to be -2db true peak from Spotify. I wonder if the mastering engineers are bouncing out separate versions of the masters, one louder for cd quality and one quieter for streaming services like Spotify and tidal.
I guess they just let it clip@@MaxRayMusic
I heard another RUclips channel saying that the top engineers don't really pay much attention to True Peak. IDK if that's true but I'd like to find out.@@rmv9194
I have been coming close to this conclusion in my own feeble attempt at mastering. This has confirmed this.
SUPER AWESOME TUT VID!!!! -9 is my sweet spot 😂❤
I did the same exercise a few month ago and decided my target would be -8 db integrated LUFS. Not -14! You just validated what i discovered on my own. Thank you!
At University we are being taught to mix to -6dB (dbfs as per master fader meter in daw) , and then master to -12 LUFS 🤷♂️
-12 LUFS-I is a good balance between loudness and dynamic range. Mastering engineer Ian Shepherd recommends -10 LUFS-S (short term, loudness over 3 seconds) peak during the loudest part of the song as a starting point. That will usually end up around -12 LUFS-I for the whole song... MOST commercial music is much louder than that, but it actually wrecks the dynamic range to do that, and more and more people are waking up to that. So your university's advice is good for fidelity, but if you do this professionally you'll deal with annoying bands/managers/producers that want you to master louder.
@@CyanideLovesong I asked one of the lectures about this, and in short he said exactly that, although, he did mention when he sends stuff off to likes of abbey road they come back generally -9LUFS . He said recently he was struggling to get a piano piece above -10 without destroying dynamics , he sent it to a guy at abbey road and it came back -8LUFS and sounded amazing (as would be expected).
@@SolarPeel Yeah, in the end it's subjective. Also what numbers are we talking here? When you say -9, -8 ... Is that LUFS-Integrated? Or LUFS-Short Term at the loudest parts? There's a big difference. Here's an example of a song that wouldn't have the big dynamic bass that it does if it was more smashed: ruclips.net/video/HPTBaPZz27M/видео.html
@@CyanideLovesong LUFS integrated. I think he said you can have short term hitting -4/-5lufs , but I might be getting that wrong! Sure that’s what he said tho. And cool I will check that video out - thanks ☺️ edit: wonder if It’s worth taking the song and putting it through a compressor to hear the reduced dynamics.. might as well hah
@@SolarPeel Wow, that is in hardcore loudness war territory and I personally prefer music to be more dynamic. I think Ian Shepherd's advice is best, but he masters more dynamic than most engineers.
In short, for streaming/uploading to social media: aim for -14 lufs to -10 lufs. For anything else, you can go up to a -8 lufs or whatever feels right.
BAM. WELL SAID! (MIC DROPPED)
Thank you Carlos 🙏
In 1975 they were mastering for vinyl and loud as possible is less for vinyl than for digital.
We have some customers who currently don't want to listen to music at all because everything has been compressed into standard pulp.
A guy here in Brazil had the information that the big big label producers always knew this, I just want to understand why!
Should be dB or LUFS. They are different measurement units. For me more important thing is loudness range (LRA) and not integrated loudness. And range depends on music genre. Try master classical music to -8LUFS Integrated :)
Hear hear!
Thankyou!!! Gold advice. Remastering at around 8ish now.
I master classical without limiting to around -14 and it's very soft or quiet compared to say D&B radio. For classical it's fine. I've also mastered ambient/noise, and it would be a joke to settle for -14.
If you look at your own examples of audio files by 'the masters' you'll see that they all have different dynamic ranges-for the beginners, that's different ranges of high and low levels. All these files way before being mastered to any LUFS level have been severely tampered with by compressor/limiters and other plugins on individual tracks. So LUFS just joins the ranks of an academic argument. If you use 'perceived loudness' in a LUFS setting of say -14 it will only average the sound at that level, and the peaks and troughs will be above and below that setting. But if you set your level by LUFS at ITU-R BS.1770-2 then your averaging will be much louder, and your peaks don't sit at that level, like they can be as high as -3db. My recommendation is set your LUFS at whatever is demanded by whoever you are submitting your audio file to. But before you submit your file to LUFS you can mess with lots of compressor settings to suit your preference - compressor settings like 'classic soft knee' etc. The reason engineers can get away with louder LUFS settings is because they have compressed the crap out of their music beforehand--meaning they have brought up the soft passages to the level of the loud passages. So, after all that gobbledygook, I prepare files for a radio station, files that include mainstream songs and also ads and other manufactured audio, with lots of little tricks like compression, EQ and other effects way before LUFS settings. I use 'perceived loudness' set to -16 LUFS with no limiter.
Thank you, I used to mix my beats on -10 lufs or -11 and I'm alsways thinking why is my sounding lower, I starting looking in to it and now it's confirmed thanks to you!!!! ✌🏼✌🏼
Happy to help!
Ya know? This does makes sense. Some of my songs I've mastered ended up having -14 LUFS be too quiet compared to reference tracks or listening to music in car stereos. The -7 and -8 area does a nice trim on the peak transients when maximizing.
If you master to -9.5 LUFS or higher, you are killing the song and basically dynamicly re-eqing (reshaping frequencies) the track to be unrecognizable based on the original dynamics of the track and the original EQ signature.
This is the true irony of making things loud.
- At -10 (and in some cases -11) LUFS the music is already LOUD enough without destroying the original dynamics of the song.
- A song at -8 & a song at -10 LUFS can sound as equaly as loud if they are limited to the same final peak level limit (-0.2 for example). However, the main difference that will be heard is the +2dB shift in the mid range and high-end and the -2dB shift in the lowend.
- When you push a limiter that hard (doesn't matter if you are using 1 or 5 in series) you are literally dynamicly tilt eqing the song. The sound is still equally as loud, It's just our brain and ears are more sensitive to mid range frequencies and up.
- Try this then level match the two by ear and see for yourself. You probably won't like the lowend. However, this is one of the very reasons why clipping because so popular.
- Even with all the above said, the most important thing is not just getting to a desired level. What's more important is......how you get there.
This is more due to the fact that most streaming services lower the level if it is too loud... the idea is therefore to master so loud that nothing is lowered. But as you said, that's nonsense! I don't know of any professional production that is that quiet. In my experience, newer productions are more like -8 dB LUFS to -11 dB LUFS.
It's best to measure the integrated loudness over the entire song. This includes quiet and loud passages and then take this average value. I stick to reference tracks, i.e. artists whose audio quality I personally like. And if the reference track has -11 dB LUFS, I take this value... But I have never seen -14 dB LUFS on any track.
good shit bud loud in clear.
Like the last user said, you don't subtract the true peak level headroom from the LUFS level. If it's -8 LUFS, regardless of whether the peak is -2 dBFS or even 0 dBFS, it's still -8 LUFS. If it's being mixed to -8 LUFS, then it's not being mixed to -6 LUFS then just dropping the gain by 2 dBFS (it could be, but I doubt it, that's the whole point of LUFS metering... to be more consistent in loudness and allow for more dynamic range). Also, if you're ever playing this audio back on professional balanced audio interfaces built for +4dBu nominal level in/out, with +24dBu peak level, -8 LUFS is is going to be more like +16dBu norminal at the interfaces output, which is way to hot! Around -23 to -21 LUFS is needed for +4dBu norminal output. That still leaves you around 20 dB of headroom for peaks to fall in to without clipping in live or broadcast sound environments as well. That's why broadcast uses LUFS, EBU R 128, or a reference like -20 dBFS or -18 dBFS for 0VU, so it allows for peaks between the average (norminal) level and max peak level - while maintaining consistent loudness. LUFS was meant for the same thing, and -8 LUFS is not the headroom that the LUFS scale was designed to help fix - less compression and more dynamic range (closer to live but without clipping peaks from one source material to the next while delivering the same "loudness"). That's why most LUFS meters have a target reference line of -23 LUFS on them. Broadcasters have been using -20dBFS for 0VU for decades for the same reason, playback/record headroom differences between average and peak level on balanced analogue gear. But do you think 99% of self professed audio engineers or mastering engineers understand these basics, NOPE. Because they're all using -14 LUFS or above - Once again, loudness wars vs technical common sense. Not everyone listens on cheap consumer devices where distortion they don't care about. But if you are in professional balanced high end studio, -8 LUFS is waaaaaay too hot a signal!!!
GUYS!! LUFs is essentially a measure of dynamics. Master to whatever LUFs gives you the effect you’re after since Spotify balances them all out anyways
FYI: There are delievery standards e.g. the R128 broadcast standard ‘Loudness normalisation and permitted maximum level of audio signals’ by EBU is defined at -23 LUFS (+/- 0,5 LU) published November 2023.
The full story is that they "bought" each track/album. CD/lossless media has always been mastered to louder levels than streaming. There is nothing new in that. Most people do not buy their music. They stream it. It states quite clearly in the article that streaming is set to -14 LUFS. Simple answer is master to -14 for streaming but if you intend to sell then go for higher.
All these tracks I tested were from Apple music streaming charts. I didn't test CD.
@@DavidCamposComposer Don't streaming services normalize tracks? I was under the impression they analyzed the whole song and took an integrated approach to how they would normalize. I think what BassBusMusic is saying is that you would have gotten a different result had you bought the CD like Izotope did.
There also are settings, at least in Spotify that allow a listener to bypass their normalization. Which could be the case in his tests, I don’t have Apple Music so I can’t test it myself
There's a lot more to it than you've stated here. Getting things up to those levels is a huge compromise and obviously not just a case of slamming into a limiter
man thank you for that i always thought about that because you could tell there are a lots of song louder than other
I SO wish I saw your video before I spent so much time adjusting loudness on my tracks to -14LUFS. I was so happy to get all the tracks at -14, then listened in my car and was sorely disappointed. They sounded weak...I kind of did what you did, but just analyzed some songs I listened to and realized that none of them were at -14.
Anyway, thanks for clarifying this!
you got thumbs down but you are 100% correct. I rmbr Rick Beato saying that -18db (I think? or 16, or 14) is WAY too low to send to a mastering engineer. can't rmbr exactly the # but yeah... most mixers are mixing way too quiet (and mastering also)
When someone listen to your -14db lufs song without volume equalization it's going to be a lot quieter than pro records. The loudness is in the mix. When you get better at balancing your mix you notice that it's easy to get etc -7db lufa loudness. This has been the biggest struggle for me personally for so long.
Actually as a producer, I say each genre has its own perfect LUFS level and that's why you are adviced to use reference tracks when mastering so that you can match the LUFs range of the genre
Super interesting. My background is in radio - a few things I wanted to mention - radio stations (in US) typically request production to -6db, or at least they did during the decades in your chart which were the years I was in radio. Then the stations would have a compressor to even things out. Also worth a mention is radio stations (and TV too) intentionally play the commercial material louder - they do it on purpose, as obnoxious as that is. This is not always true, but usually. Now I'm producing to Spotify and learning all about LUFS for the first time in my live, even though I spent 25 years producing for radio! I think we've reached the limit, where sound quality will just suffer if people keep pushing it.
I do have a question still - wondering about if Spotify "normalizes" things, in other words, if you're citing the LUFS for some top hits, do they play at that level on Spotify without Spotify "changing" the volumes? I ask because sometimes I hear Spotify changes the volume after you upload your song if it needs volume adjustment, and here you're suggesting when I listen to Spotify I'll hear a big hit and it will be playing on Spotify louder, without any "adjustment."
Also I thought of one more question! If I am producing a soft, dynamic song, soft folk or even classical with a lot of quiet parts, should I allow for a quite low LUFS-I reading, -20 or something low like that? Thanks!
Thanks for the video!
I mix afrobeat. Which tends to be mastered around -10 I-LUF. When I compared the same song mastered at - 14 and matched the louder one to negative -14, I did end up with with louder peaks on the one mastered at -14, as expected and they sounded virtually the same. My only frustration is that I'm not entirely sure Spotify really lowers louder tracks the way they say they do. But I will say this, obviously with my results, it's better to master to -14, assuming Spotify does what they say they do. And mixing to -14 while simultaneously trying to get your peaks between - 1 and - 2dB takes real skill. And it does force you to better balance your mix and clean it up. I just wish we knew for sure what Spotify was doing.
Thanks, brother, best video about LUFS and loudness😄🤙⚡️☀️🌟
Ty for this video. I had a feeling of something like this happening but this basically proved my theory
This is fantastic. Thank you for this important information. There are some more myths in the audio producer (home recording) community. Especially these topics:
- What difference do AD converter make really in comparison to the end product (the full mix)?
- How big is the difference of inside or outside the box mixing compared to the end product (mastered audio file)?
- Does expensive analog equipment really makes an audible different - again - compared to the sound of the end product. Not comparing single tracks.
This is important, because between an analog equipped studio and a fully loaded pc or mac are huge price differences.
Of course, not only the sound quality matters in the life of an mixing engineer but this is another topic.
All of the above can be overcome with experience. What can't be overcome easily is your monitoring system. In terms of sonics, you can't fix what you can't hear correctly. That means spending money on monitors and room treatment. Aside from that, experience and vision make good music happen.
Thanks 👍
In case new people wonder , No. same Lufs does not mean that any song with the same lufs will sound „as loud“ as another one. It is not that easy unfortunately. So don’t get crazy over it if your track is showing -8Lufs but sound much“quieter „ than the „Famous Hits“. Lufs does not take in account the Eq and overall energy balance of a song. That’s why I said what I said. There is more to sounding loud than Lufs readings
my take always -9LUFs
well there's always some client who keep yell and push me to reach -4LUFs even the quality are garbage...................at least they said *P E R F E C T*
The new Queens of the Stone Age record, ran through my interface and meters, has the meters in the red nearly the entire time. LUFS around -6.0. Still sounds good, but I think that’s a bit ridiculous for a “professional” mastering.
@Beizeiten78 I agree, there was a Bruno Mars song, same deal in the red distorted way out of balance with the bottom end and it sounds like crap I could not believe they released this and someone said yup its good to go, As stated well many of the pros do it this way. Believe me many pros do not think it sounds good, they are just doing what the producer and label asked of them. I remember Bob Ludwig a mastering legend, said he would make 2 versions one how he felt it should be done and one that was asked of him so the client could then make the choice from there. I absolutely hate the loudness war mentality, loud is not better, sure if its done right it can sound passable but the true dynamics if the song had them will just no longer be there in the way it was intended. Take some classic music like Steely Dans Aja as an example ... the music is allowed to breath and have its dynamics kept intact, if this was mastered to -8 or some other insane LUFS it would sound like crap at least to those who know what it should sound like and are listening on a real system. So while yes its dependent on the music I do not like this whole every thing must be ridiculously loud if this one jumps off the bridge we must all jump of the bridge. Call me old fashioned but that's what your volume control is for you can make it as loud as you like. As for SAGE Audio that was ref in this video I have to say one thing and I have no affiliation with them at all, but have listened to his work and to my ear his mastering sounds fantastic open and punchy not some over compressed heavily limited mess, way more natural then most of the big release crap in my opin.
I totally agree with Beizeiten78; loud definitely doesn’t mean better. Has the loudness competition gotten so bad that we just put stuff out there without considering dynamics? What I here is a bunch of over compressed loud bass saturated music. Loud does not particularly make your music stand out. In my opinion and my opinion only a great song and arrangement makes the song. I’m not saying make the song where you need a hearing aid to listen to but at least in the competitive ballpark. I have no problem with -10 or 12 even. Tracks can still be loud enough but maintaining clarity and dynamics.
TNT likes to blast commercials during sports games. Though they intentionally make the volume of a sports game seem loud, so you turn it up, then as soon as there is a commercial the damn speaks blow out. just a rant. LOL.
You are right, some people complain that you measure the peak loudness in real time, but the mainstream DAW can measure the overall average loudness of the audio, and the results are still very close, most of them are above -11LUFS, and none of the most popular styles of music I have tested are around -14. The only confusion is whether the audio I downloaded is compressed by the platform?
The LUFS doesn't even matter! It's all about making it sound gooood!!!
GREAT video man! thanks a lot!! cheers from Brazil
After much testing I typically shoot for around -8 integrated. Sounds great in the car to me and I use some of my favorite albums as reference. I refuse to let streaming services dictate what sounds good. If they turn it down, it's their platform so that's on them. But when it's time for manufacturing to CD or vinyl, I know my release is going to sound exactly how I want it to.
So stupid, digital has an 80 db + noise floor, if you want it louder turn the volume, louder with the greater dynamics of less compression actually has a greater impact as the difference between the quiet and loud sounds are greater.
thank you for this, i knew -14 was just too low in my opinion!
Spotify allows any song to go to any LUFS volume you want but the default listening settings in the Spotify app is to "normalize" the audio to the -14dB level... RUclips does NOT allow any volume level and sets every recording to the -14dB LUFS... So it depends on the service that is streaming... The best is to get a nice healthy volume and let the streaming services do what they do... That being said, to see any dynamics and punch taken from a recording for the sake of loudness is a shame...
You got your mouth full of Truth!
I get my transients fixed up and go -18 luf with ozone 11 and it sounds really good to me I'll have to try this
good stuff. my only critique is that you have your multimeter set to peak/rms and true peak is different due to the inconsistency of limiters. sometimes you could be reading -2.0 peak and still possibly be clipping.
Very interesting ! What about the LUFS for mixing ? -16db -18db ?? Thank you for your advices
As long as you succeed at shortening the distance between your peaks and valleys without sacrificing the feel of dynamic range you might sound louder at -14 than other songs that reads -14 lufs and above I would guess. Its a matter of denseness. In other words it is not the length but the girth that matters
lmao at the last sentence.....
Glazed over some other stuff.. what you are missing is that spotfy or whatever system if it had to adjust your loudness.. this is a digital adjustment not analogue.. its just headroom.. yah but its not real numbers(analogue).. those bit relationships if squashed or stretched to another scale also digital and not real is going to introduce tone changes.. (all your fx and stuff is allready baked..) because of new bit avgs. to render as wide as possible or as close to representation system limit will result in the highest fidelity... Your phone as an example is not desighned to reserve headroom in the volume control(then it might have worked).. if they have to turn up your volume.. it can only be digitally done.
Your very correct I am struggling 14 I am not satisfy 14 when I am mastering I am not satisfying 14 thanks for information Grammy from Grammy Award winners
If you reference -2.5dB to true peak. Then it more realistice -1.5dB. But file is already encoded so you can ignore this true peak value.
Most music is anyway not mastered on any loudbess standarts, but still to peak values.
I compress and limit to make your music sound good, then lower/increase the out volume so I get the integrated loudness to target
Finally, someone says it as it is. Thanks. I've had many discussions about this and people just believe the -14 myth haha
Thanks for this information