y’all completely missed the point, it’s not about fixed loudness, it’s about not being forced to brick wall in order to compete with other loud stuff. so if you mix works at -14, you don’t need to overlimit it “just because”. if it works nicely at -9 or -10, you don’t need to get that extra few dB’s to sound as loud as -6 just because some popular band you like has that volume. it makes it much easier to concentrate on a good sounding mix than on loudness and that’s game changer. The only thing is UA-cam music, they don’t normalize at all and all the relevant people in the industry should demand it.
Not sure why this topic triggers so many people - your point is simple: make it sound good, and then turn it up without additional dynamic processing (which * will * change the sound). Notably though there's a lot of click bait on UA-cam with exclamations like "-14 LuFS iS wROnG" - so while "don't do -14" is perfectly serviceable title for a UA-cam video, it's not exactly what you're saying. It's not something to avoid, (as in "don't do it") it's just a technical target - and a reasonable one at that given the disparity of loudness genre by genre. The idea is pretty straight forward, and actually quite a bit more civil than the old terrestrial radio habit of just crushing everything (which was likely done for very different technical reasons) If you want that sweet sweet EDM tone than go ahead and rock that L1. Just know that normalizing it won't change that tone.
@@popsarockerIt’s actually amazing we are not forced to crush mixes to be competitive anymore. That’s great for the art of mixing itself and surely marks the end of nonsense loudness wars.
I get to around -9 and start hating the lack of dynamics in the mix ! I usually back it down to around -11...-10.5 and im happy. On playback on most devices it sounds perfectly loud enough and similar to other mixes. If the listener wants it louder, they can turn up the volume 😅
I agree with this! Yes I bring up the loudness meter as a sanity check but I still use my ears to tell me if something doesn't sound right. It just happens to always work out that once I hit -8 LUFS I can hear the dynamics being sucked out.
Nothing I have heard at -5db to -9db Lufs sounds decent. The problem is that we are now about 30 years into the "loudness wars" and that means that there is a whole generation that doesn't know anything different than overly squashed dynamics and mediocre sound and think it represents high quality.
I still preffer to listen to Led Zeppelins first album on vinyl so i get what you are talking about. How ever when we are talking about music on Spotify or such the compressed file format is a bigger problem than audio compressed sound.
IMO it's all genre and song type specific. A metal song or a trance or an EDM will definitely need to sound louder than a jazz or a country or a soft blues song at whatever common LUFS. So that brings us to the musical elements in the soundscape and dynamics necessary to maintain genre wise.
People who doesnt trust your opinion cna just go and check top songs loudness. they will be surprised lately i trust my ears. even if it says its clipping on true peaks . if it SOUND GOOD it just sounds good if it sounds good everywhere ,in my car ,earphones etc . GOOD ENOUGH
Agree, but at least someone is trying to standadtize things a little here. Because as you said, people don't really care, it's just mastering engineers that still wanna impress their clients with a louder mixes, thus creathing even a bigger myth: louder - better.
I've noticed some novices will "aim" for specific integrated loudness values without really understanding why they're applying limiting in the first place, and without thinking of the effect it has on the song. The problem is not so much -14 lufs, but rather that some people don't understand the purpose of limiting when mastering...
Good point. But thats another question to answer in another episode. Why do you think some people dont understand the purpose of limiting when mastering?
Yeah, I've learned this the hard way. It is better to let streaming turn down a loud master, versus mastering too quietly, because users can only turn up your music to 100%.
@@Kenneth-F I'm the lone standout on this point. But using -14, or -18 or so LUFS, or even plain ol dBfs, is kind of like the old VU meter days. Ya had something concrete to aim for, a standard of sorts. The first digital metering to come along was peak based, with zero at the top of the scale, and engineers soon started doing everything they could to get that meter to peak at or just below zero full scale. What a MESS. It also contributed to the loudness wars, along with artists not understanding the simple principle that how loud something played back is determined at home - or on the road or in the air - by the CONSUMER or listener. So mix and master soft, and let us at home decide how loud we want to play it back. Make Music Sound Great Again, instead of like a constant in your face dial tone!
@@Zickcermacity and thats the reason i said master so it sounds good and then make it as loud as you can without interference with the sound. Im shure it will be stronger than -14lufs.
Bra snack, jag hörde om detta först för ett halvår sedan. Personligen har jag enorma problem med mastering-arbetet, först och främst för att jag är okunnig vilket leder till att den exporterade låten låter långt ifrån vad den gjorde i Ableton (som jag använder). Det är dags att ta en officiell lektion i detta!
I totally agree with you! Use your ear and make a master that sounds as good as possible and make it as load as you possible can. How much you should compress and if you should use a limiter at the end of the master chain really depends on genre (the more you use compression and limiting, the loader the master can be). I recently remastered a recording I made in 2001. I just used my ears and made an analysis after the mastering was done, it ended up around -9 to -10 LUFS, which somehow is the "normal" level for a rock/hardrock record. Jazz is lower, metal is higher, but the important thing is to be in se same ballpark as your competitors. The band Fata Morgana is not a metal band so I think I did it right. Feel free to listen (just click on me, I am also from Sweden). If you like guitar-driven hardrock with more complex arrangements but still melodic, you should defenetely listen. // Peter
yeah man so true 👍 i already did that mistake myself once and had to re-publish the album to the streamings because of that, as it was sounding too quite so normally i just master -8-9 for chill stuff and -7-6 for harder/edgier sound
This is a great point you're making. I am still very green when it comes to Mastering my own music, but I have learned that -14 is only the standard of the streaming services and not exactly the best loudness creatively for the music.
I agree. You just have to use your ears.It's all about what the song needs. But the truth is that not everybody can mix a song at -6 lufs keeping all the juice in there (tension, articulation etc ) espesially without using samples.
Mastering so loud make music sound without life. A song that starts with a piano and a voice sounding was loud as a complete band in same song. Some times in some devices the volume is only at 5(out of 30) and it's very loud 😅
You have good points, but i think its only part of the answer. It really depends on the genre. The only way to beat or reject the loudness war is to not be part of it. By choosing the volume that bests suits the album. The music industry is sick. Artists are supposed to make what they want, change minds and hearts - not the other way around. Lastly, there is no way you can get a "healthy" dynamic sound at -5. Its going to be smashed.
Getting -5 to sound good isn't that hard especially on a song without a lot of low end like a ballad. There are tricks to getting down to -5, when a song sounds terrible at -5 its probably because the mixer didn't know the tricks. More of how loud a song can go is determined in the mix and not during mastering.
@@dodgingrain3695 huh? No one said it was hard. Squishing is easier, no dynamics is easy. That does not equate to sound quality. And your last sentence is assuming that all genres are supposed to be mixed the same.
-11 -10 and even-12 sounds great unless it's EDM or metal. Clean and dynamic is the way to go. Some of this shit is so loud that from beginning to end, the song loses its flavor. Thanks for the content. I appreciate it, my brother from another.
And actually no- there’s more to it than Spotify just turning your tracks down via normalization. There’s also the -1 one true peak protocol- which if it is not adhered to can cause automatic normalization to smash an otherwise sounding good mix. Honestly, this kind of sounds like 2005 thinking to me.
@@Kenneth-F if I’m understanding everyone correctly, with the understanding that there is a tremendous amount of material out there that does not benefit from being squashed - especially the kind of material I’m doing, he can also be said that if we’re not getting out there at Full, professional loudness we are hamstringing ourselves
All platforms just lower the volume except TikTok (they are using compression). But who cares since there are no Taylor Swift tracks on TikTok anymore LOL
@@Kenneth-F I know you’re not calling for the level that I’m speaking of, but I mention it because my stuff is on both Apple Music and Spotify. The reason I mix that quietly is because I do mostly ambient music. And when I checked my references from the masters, like Brian Eno, etc. all of their recordings were hovering around that area. Whenever I went above that, my mixes sounded awful. That said - if you’re doing quiet music, you definitely don’t want to squash it because all the dynamics and sense of space are entirely lost. And space… Is especially what ambient music is about. ✌️
It’s the compression. It’s not the normalization. You cannot choose. Your song will get squished here on UA-cam and all the stores if it peaks above -13 LUFS or abouts. Loudness Wars are over because digital domain. It has nothing to do with how loud your song ends up to the listener! Or whatever do what you want
-14 lufs is plenty loud though, is the thing thing. All a digital file is, is a container. The amplifier makes the song loud. What's Thriller? -14 lufs? -13.98? Has any other album made as much money or sound as good as Thriller? ehhh no. Film scores like Titanic, Braveheart, they have ridiculously low lufs and peaks. They can be amplified to a point that will almost deafen you on the correct system. The opening theme to Star Wars is -15 lufs, nearly blasts you down into your seat when it starts. The intro to ROYGBIV by Boards of Canada is -17 lufs, it's overall average is -13.3, amazing sounding recording. If we want to get higher fidelity and record for posterity, we need to healthy lower levels that aren't distorting converters.
Nice try. How ever Thriller has been remaster and are now at about -9.5 lufs. And about film score, well the standard in movies are -27lufs and dont have anything to do with what i talk about in my video.
and the remaster of Thriller doesn't sound good. You're not getting my point about what a waveform is. Go ahead and continue using a file format as an "amplifier".@@Kenneth-F
Half true. Yes make it sound great (by ear). No to having level "targets". The audio on this video for example is a good, clear level: YT has barely lowered it. Others that are over-compressed and loud are typically lowered by as much as -6 to -16dB. (right click: Stats for nerds and check the Normalised % ). But it IS another cause for 24 bit audio, as the likelihood is that your 16 bit audio will be subject to further gain changes.
The advice is not -6db. My advice is to make the master sound as good as you can and then make it as loud as you can without interference with the sound.
My point is that an inexperienced mastering engineer, will take your advice of -6 to -8 and make it as loud as possible, often not being able to hear the damage done to the dynamics. Instead, if an inexperienced engineer would aim for something a little more conservative, like -10 to -14 LUFS, the damage to the dynamics most likely won't be so severe.
Master two versions of your mix. The normal way and then one for -14 LUFS if you're going to place it into UA-cam's platform. I haven't found a plugin or software than can convert your audio to -14 LUFS automatically without ruining your ceiling of -1 dB.
Nowadays you just make it sound good and ignore the loudness war, because it will be normalized by (most) enduser devices. Some styles need the lowest dyn. range and it's ok. They can crush their masters but won't get any louder than the rest when playing live. In essence it's like using a limiter for its sound like we do with the compressors. But limiters are built to be super transparent..... hence the spiral of confussion.
Exept when People dont use normalize and as I discovered when spotify released its "your year in spotify " that was not normalized. Just make your master as loud as possible without interference with the sound. 🙏
@@Kenneth-F There is no hard rule. Some styles benefit from that interference, plus a very high dynamic range is problematic on most cheapo devices people use to listen to.
Genre specific but the problem is when nice dynamic music is butchered to less than -12 LUFS. There is a volume knob for a reason. Most "Remastered" tracks on streaming platforms are worse than the original. I put a Fleetwood Mac song and turn the volume and hear all the dynamics and emotions. Put the remastered and everything is slammed to the wall and you can't really turn the volume up.
Well yes, but the numbers are not interesting. Just use your ears. I know for shure i get a lot higher than -12lufs most of the times. But still it all depends on the song.
Thanks for sharing! I dont think that the numbers are that important. It all depends on the song. Guessing you mastering music thats sounds almost the same.
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 with out 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 digital/analog clipping became 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.
@@Kenneth-F Roger, 4sho you know this. Just wanted to drop some guidance if any green person was open to it. I hate how the industry feels the need to keep things so hush hush. I know we all need to make money but geshhhhh. Pointless. Everybody learned from somebody else to some degree. Plus, even if you give two experienced people the same track, you will get two different results. Different gear, different ears, & different perspective. We all, by nature's design, have a different sound. No getting around it. It's pointless to try and keep things hidden. Free love, free knowledge!✌🏾
if you're compiling a compilation you need to know the lufs of the ' quietist track ' when it is peaking at true 0db ( this will normally be the track with the most sensible dynamic range ) . . you need then to normalise all the other tracks within the compilation to that LUFS to get a balanced loudness so no track dominates loudness wise THEN YOU CAN PLAY IT ON ANY SOUND SYSTEM AS LOUD OR AS QUIET THAT SUITS ( ALL TRACKS WILL HAVE THE SAME LOUDNESS ) for individual tracks LUFS has no significance when doing your masters do a good dynamic mix ( DONT SQUASH THE FUCK OUT OF IT ) . . normalise to 0db peak . . that way it will be as loud as possible on any system . . . let the broadcasters worry about the LUFS ( Not as they ever do )
1:23 I don't think, if the volume is too low, spotify etc. can simply just pull up the fader, when it's already peaking at 0 dBFS. The other thing is: I don't see a point, why users should switch off the normalization mode. It's there for a reason. Someone in the comments mentioned that -6LUFS lowered to -14 is still louder than -14 original. In a few cases this may be right, but LUFS actually calculates perceived loudness already. What he's referring to may be RMS. I would advice to master something to achieve the sound you like and then make sure that it's -14 LUFS at least (depending on the genre of course. Classical music at -14 is not good sounding). My masters usually reach the -12 to -10 LUFS, almost never higher, but it's more acoustic pop, blues and stuff like that.
The only reason is that you are competing with the pro albums. And if normalization button is not on then your tracks at -14 will be super low. Discovered that when i got my Spotify wrapped. Yours master at -12 to -10 should be just perfect.
More dense means shittier. No dynamics, your rock song's drums will not hit anymore. They will be some kind of a lukewarm squashed thing. It will lose all the goodies.
I don't know if it's possible to master something to -6 LUFS and still have a good sound. Most of the loud ones sound like shit to me. Maybe because I am old-school I don't listen to songs through my phones tiny speakers. Instead i listen on big speakers at home and in the car.
Mastering at -14 LUFS being the new meta was such an obvious lie but I guess it's easy to fall for when so many influencers present misinformation with confidence.
The worse part (and this is well documented) is the data compression of the quality on UA-cam. It's not that they are compressing the signal, it's that they are compressing the data. They are bringing everything down to 160kbps mpeg even if your encoded file is AAC or WAV lossless. There is no way to disable it.
Spotify WILL use some processing if master BELOW -14 LUFs Also if one song -10 and another -5 or so, they would be diffrent even if they playing on same actual volume, so more chance what more LUFs will sound better regardles of normalisation, its that i understand for now :)
@Kenneth-F then read more carefully 🤷 they used limiters for quiet songs, now they are used only in "loud mode" and as for where this information comes from - from videos like yours or articles, but they are two years old however, doing more than 14 LUFs and not thinking about it further is wrong, because you need to remember the connection between LUFs and True Peak, and leave -1 dB for the master in -14 LUFs, and -2 dB for the master with a large LUFs value, if it is meant to be listened to in lossless format too. your message in the video should rather be that you need to understand the details, and not blindly chase after who said or showed what on UA-cam
I should not be arguing with anyone, however as a long time music fan I can tell you that I do not like the sound of -8 LUFS or below. At all. I hate it. I have never heard anything mastered like that that sounds anything but irritating. The audience has a volume knob if they want something loud. There must be a consistent volume level for radio and streaming outlets for the sanity of the audience. That being said, to master to -14 doesn't make sense, I agree.
Good point. How ever it all depends on the song(music style) Thats why i said ”you should eq and compress to taste and then make the master as loud as possible without interference with the sound.
Appreciate your vid, but Dont agree...sorry. 40 yrs of mixing, worked with Bob Katz, Bernie Grundman etc. I cant tell you; stop listening to this stuff on youtube (no offense). -6, -8 etc means nothing without context. Its not the 90s anymore and the worst thing you can do is paint with the same brush every time. Mixing a sparse acoustic track @-8 makes it sound like its in a tiny box when AB with a master that is context correct; equal loudness comparison Thanks to the guys above for speaking truth when it was all madness. I still mix to K-14 because its so easy to feel it. If you want more density then top down it, on the busses. The more your taste and listening skills develop, the more fatiguing it all becomes unless you are listening in a space that demands it ie earbuds on train. K-12 STILL rules as the sweetspot that an audiophile can enjoy and still make space for mix without smearing the life out of everything. Just remember its art AND physics...less is more, a snare whack 6db less, is a whack 6db less. If it sounds good, it is good. Think about it...take all this 'information' with a grain of salt before you make it your knowledge. @Anything about music - To really get a handle, would love to hear some of your premium tracks that you have mixed? Do you have a playlist of best 3?
And thats why I said you should master your song as loud as possible without interference with the sound. The whole point of the episode was to use your ear and not look at numbers.🙏
@@Kenneth-F Cheers for the reply. My response was mostly to the comments and the interpretation of the video. My point was that all of this was sorted decades ago...just no one was 'listening' ;-) K-12 STILL rocks as the sweetspot and you can mix calibrated to it with absolute monitoring levels, saving damaging the tools...our hearing too. All the best!
take the sidechain challenge. drop your vocals into the mix. learn how to side chain compression between bass and kick drum , bus vocal reverbs and you wont need to ultra max too much
@@WillGoring no this option exist on my smartphone. One problem is even though i have the normalization button in when spotify released ”your year on spotify” it was NOT normalized.
Why not take full advantage of the bit depth of the file, and master to something like -1 dBFS? That way, it will only ever need turned down (not up), and makes the most use of the dynamic range of the file format, resulting in a better signal to noise ratio.
@@Kenneth-F Well, I guess I assumed too much. I don't really know what a "loudness unit" is. I just figured that making it as loud as it can get without any type of distortion would be optimal because it will only need turned down when normalizing it with other tracks.
@@chinering23 Ah, so my old hunch (that I disregarded when making my original comment) was right. It's a subjective scale of perceived loudness. And in my experience, the more the volume of a sound/song changes in a short time frame, the louder it feels; like a jackhammer of noise on the ear. That dubstep piece illustrates it well. And I wasn't even listening with headphones.
Just do what sounds good right? Also, it is really genre specific, classical music wont sound good on -8 lufs. On bigger sound systems more dynamic range will be more beneficial (in some aspects).
In that case the quality of your audio is compromised when you upload it on spotify, youtube. They have an automatic algorithm that makes your audio pathetic. It's actually very frustrating! Recently I faced couple of instances when my (professionally done) master sounded perfect everywhere but it ended up sounding something else on spotify. UA-cam, however was better than apple & spotify and spotify was the worst.
I am curious as to how many turn off normalization? You would think the vast majority would keep it on as no one likes uneven volume between songs they play
Honestly, I wonder if this obsession with “loud” is killing the dynamics, and thus inadvertently make everything sound less interesting and actually less loud. If you listen to the same song used for end credits of a movie, it will usually sound more punchy, hitting you harder without sounding harsh. Same with live performances where they aren’t compressing the life out of everything, though even that seems rare these days. Cranking up to concert level, should hit like a concert, while not feeling like pink noise with some oscillating eq’s. But, that doesn’t translate well to the car I guess. Radio, well… that’s a story for another day. Still think a lot of albums first released on vinyl sounds more dynamic than their CD version. Should not be like that, from a technical perspective, but it is a mastering decision behind it, and it stems from the loudness war.
Good point and thats why i said you should first get the master to sound good and then make it as loud as possible without interference with the sound.
Dont get hung up on numbers. The point i was making is that you should make your master sound as good as you can and then make it as loud as you can without interference with sound to much. Just let go of numbers! 🙏
@@Kenneth-F I'm definitely not hung up on numbers, but what's the point of going over all the values you talk about in your video, if you're not telling anyone if you mean rms or peak? It cancels everything you just said and makes me feel like watching your video was totally worthless. Despite me mostly agreeing with you, metering in every stage in my chains is definitely a helpful tool to keep me in check with where I can go and what my limits are. I don't enjoy how pushing any plugins to their max sounds, despite sometimes going that direction for creativity. Without specifying peak or rms though, how does any composer, producer, or mixer have any idea of what you are talking about?
Im talking about Lufs in the episode. Lufs is a measure of an avarage level signal over time. That means not peak. But its clear my point didnt get to you. Put on a great album and compare your master to it.@@mikedextro
I’m not sure why you are implying that I don’t know what LUFS are and how they differ from db, or dbVU. I know the difference between those and VU too. Good day.
…as well as the difference between integrated LUFS and Root Mean Squared. My Vinyl collection is about 2000, still not sure why you mention these things. Do you want to know how many cds, MP3’s and streaming subscriptions I have too?
Would you push a limiter just for its sonic characteristics, and then turn down the volume to compensate, as you would a compressor? Because if you aim for higher than -14 LUFS, that's in essence what you are doing for all the listeners that use normalization (i.e., almost everyone on digital platforms).
The normalization will bring down the volume. Thats correct. And the normalization dont change the sound. How ever when not in normalization mode your master dont stand a chance next to a pro mastering. I discovered that the hard way when listening to my spotify year wrap. The normalization didnt work on that.
Hello I have been reflecting on this for years now and I will have to 100% agree on you. Any actual GOOD mix or master will not have a sonic difference when ABing between lets say a -7 or a -14 track. This is just the truth, and if people can hear a dfference on their end it is because they are not good enough and cannot achieve a loud track like the pros do. Sorry, had to say it! its time to step up your game if you dont like going louder than -14
Your master should be as loud as other successfully commercial songs in the same genre all other things being equal. You want your song to fit in with other songs that a listener might be listening to if your song was in that rotation. You DO NOT want to make it as loud as you can. You want to make it as loud as is appropriate for the genre.
@@Kenneth-F the benefit are if you want to be able to play something very loud on good speakers . Over limited masters sound better on small speaker in a noisy environment .... when I play a track mastered at - 8 on my nice speakers I immediately reach for the volume knob and turn it down by a lot , when it is around - 6 I just hit stop and move on .
@@Kenneth-F no usually over limited stuff sounds bad when played at a high volume on good speakers so I immediately lower the volume .... over limited to -6 just sounds laughably dated to my ears , brings back bad memories from 2012
If you don't care about these numbers (-14 lufs), then the quality of your audio is compromised when you upload it on spotify, youtube. They have an automatic algorithm that makes your audio pathetic. It's actually very frustrating! Recently I faced couple of instances when my (professionally done) master sounded perfect everywhere but it ended up sounding something else on spotify. UA-cam, however was better than apple & spotify and spotify was the worst.
I have music on Spotify with -14lufs and -8lufs. They both sound as good as all my other platforms. How come all the pro albums can sound good with -8 lufs and yours cant?
thats what I call LIES. if whatever you say were true then all main artists and labels would upload their music at -14 everytime but this is not the case why is that? because it sounds exactly the same 😄
Anurag, you didn't use the scientific method. This is easy to test and verify to disprove your post. Upload -14 and -8 LUFS tracks and then use Audio DiffMaker against the originals. Your post sounds plausible for low-information superstitious people, except what you posted is actually gossip and guessing and storytelling. You sound scared and intimidated by technology. Instead of being scared and imagining stories and tales about the stuff that scares you, use the scientific method to test and prove it yourself so you don't have to always live in a fog of superstition.
The point should not be to decrease dynamics. Mastering a track to -8 LUFS will almost always ruin the dynamics of an average mix. I personally don’t know anyone who turns off the normalisation on Spotify, because it’s a great feature. Where you can make the difference is with (parallel) compression, EQ, harmonic distortion and other tricks to make the mix stand out and “feel” loud while still averaging at -14 LUFS.
And thats why i said you should master your song so it sounds good and then make it as loud as you can without interfering with the sound. The numbers are not what your going for. Use your ears.
y’all completely missed the point, it’s not about fixed loudness, it’s about not being forced to brick wall in order to compete with other loud stuff. so if you mix works at -14, you don’t need to overlimit it “just because”. if it works nicely at -9 or -10, you don’t need to get that extra few dB’s to sound as loud as -6 just because some popular band you like has that volume.
it makes it much easier to concentrate on a good sounding mix than on loudness and that’s game changer.
The only thing is UA-cam music,
they don’t normalize at all and all the relevant people in the industry should demand it.
❤️🙏
Not sure why this topic triggers so many people - your point is simple: make it sound good, and then turn it up without additional dynamic processing (which * will * change the sound). Notably though there's a lot of click bait on UA-cam with exclamations like "-14 LuFS iS wROnG" - so while "don't do -14" is perfectly serviceable title for a UA-cam video, it's not exactly what you're saying.
It's not something to avoid, (as in "don't do it") it's just a technical target - and a reasonable one at that given the disparity of loudness genre by genre. The idea is pretty straight forward, and actually quite a bit more civil than the old terrestrial radio habit of just crushing everything (which was likely done for very different technical reasons) If you want that sweet sweet EDM tone than go ahead and rock that L1. Just know that normalizing it won't change that tone.
@@popsarockerIt’s actually amazing we are not forced to crush mixes to be competitive anymore. That’s great for the art of mixing itself and surely marks the end of nonsense loudness wars.
🙏❤@@popsarocker
I totally agree !!@@Strepite
I get to around -9 and start hating the lack of dynamics in the mix ! I usually back it down to around -11...-10.5 and im happy. On playback on most devices it sounds perfectly loud enough and similar to other mixes. If the listener wants it louder, they can turn up the volume 😅
Perfect. Thats why I said make it sound as good as you can and then make it as loud as you can without interference with the sound. 🙂
I agree with this! Yes I bring up the loudness meter as a sanity check but I still use my ears to tell me if something doesn't sound right. It just happens to always work out that once I hit -8 LUFS I can hear the dynamics being sucked out.
Nothing I have heard at -5db to -9db Lufs sounds decent. The problem is that we are now about 30 years into the "loudness wars" and that means that there is a whole generation that doesn't know anything different than overly squashed dynamics and mediocre sound and think it represents high quality.
I still preffer to listen to Led Zeppelins first album on vinyl so i get what you are talking about. How ever when we are talking about music on Spotify or such the compressed file format is a bigger problem than audio compressed sound.
IMO it's all genre and song type specific. A metal song or a trance or an EDM will definitely need to sound louder than a jazz or a country or a soft blues song at whatever common LUFS. So that brings us to the musical elements in the soundscape and dynamics necessary to maintain genre wise.
Good point!
I agree with this 200%. 🖤🤘🏽
People who doesnt trust your opinion cna just go and check top songs loudness.
they will be surprised
lately i trust my ears. even if it says its clipping on true peaks .
if it SOUND GOOD
it just sounds good
if it sounds good everywhere ,in my car ,earphones etc . GOOD ENOUGH
100% agree! 👍
Agree, but at least someone is trying to standadtize things a little here. Because as you said, people don't really care, it's just mastering engineers that still wanna impress their clients with a louder mixes, thus creathing even a bigger myth: louder - better.
Dont get me wrong. I like that they normalize to -14 Lufs. That dont mean that we should master to it.
I've noticed some novices will "aim" for specific integrated loudness values without really understanding why they're applying limiting in the first place, and without thinking of the effect it has on the song. The problem is not so much -14 lufs, but rather that some people don't understand the purpose of limiting when mastering...
Good point. But thats another question to answer in another episode. Why do you think some people dont understand the purpose of limiting when mastering?
Do -13 lol, cause that’s all UA-cam cares about, and before long will be the only place that matters 🖤🐓 good luck all
Well the point is to not listen to what the platforms standard is.
Yeah, I've learned this the hard way. It is better to let streaming turn down a loud master, versus mastering too quietly, because users can only turn up your music to 100%.
Exactly!
@@Kenneth-F I'm the lone standout on this point. But using -14, or -18 or so LUFS, or even plain ol dBfs, is kind of like the old VU meter days. Ya had something concrete to aim for, a standard of sorts. The first digital metering to come along was peak based, with zero at the top of the scale, and engineers soon started doing everything they could to get that meter to peak at or just below zero full scale. What a MESS.
It also contributed to the loudness wars, along with artists not understanding the simple principle that how loud something played back is determined at home - or on the road or in the air - by the CONSUMER or listener.
So mix and master soft, and let us at home decide how loud we want to play it back. Make Music Sound Great Again, instead of like a constant in your face dial tone!
@@Zickcermacity and thats the reason i said master so it sounds good and then make it as loud as you can without interference with the sound. Im shure it will be stronger than -14lufs.
Bra snack, jag hörde om detta först för ett halvår sedan. Personligen har jag enorma problem med mastering-arbetet, först och främst för att jag är okunnig vilket leder till att den exporterade låten låter långt ifrån vad den gjorde i Ableton (som jag använder). Det är dags att ta en officiell lektion i detta!
Tackar! Man kan inte kunna allt men man kan lära sig allt! 👍
Good master must sound good at low and high volumes. How the track is mixed obviously plays a critical part also.
I agree!
I totally agree with you! Use your ear and make a master that sounds as good as possible and make it as load as you possible can. How much you should compress and if you should use a limiter at the end of the master chain really depends on genre (the more you use compression and limiting, the loader the master can be). I recently remastered a recording I made in 2001. I just used my ears and made an analysis after the mastering was done, it ended up around -9 to -10 LUFS, which somehow is the "normal" level for a rock/hardrock record. Jazz is lower, metal is higher, but the important thing is to be in se same ballpark as your competitors. The band Fata Morgana is not a metal band so I think I did it right. Feel free to listen (just click on me, I am also from Sweden).
If you like guitar-driven hardrock with more complex arrangements but still melodic, you should defenetely listen. // Peter
100% agree! Will check them out!
Hope you like it! @@Kenneth-F
yeah man so true 👍
i already did that mistake myself once and had to re-publish the album to the streamings because of that, as it was sounding too quite
so normally i just master -8-9 for chill stuff and -7-6 for harder/edgier sound
Sounds like your on the right track.
This is a great point you're making. I am still very green when it comes to Mastering my own music, but I have learned that -14 is only the standard of the streaming services and not exactly the best loudness creatively for the music.
You learn fast! 😀
I agree. You just have to use your ears.It's all about what the song needs.
But the truth is that not everybody can mix a song at -6 lufs keeping all the juice in there (tension, articulation etc ) espesially without using samples.
I agree!
Mastering so loud make music sound without life. A song that starts with a piano and a voice sounding was loud as a complete band in same song. Some times in some devices the volume is only at 5(out of 30) and it's very loud 😅
And thats why i said you should make the master sound as good as you can and then make it as loud as you can without interference with the sound.
You have good points, but i think its only part of the answer. It really depends on the genre. The only way to beat or reject the loudness war is to not be part of it. By choosing the volume that bests suits the album. The music industry is sick. Artists are supposed to make what they want, change minds and hearts - not the other way around. Lastly, there is no way you can get a "healthy" dynamic sound at -5. Its going to be smashed.
And thats why I said "you should make your master sound as good as you can and then make it as loud as you can without interference with the sound" 🙏
Getting -5 to sound good isn't that hard especially on a song without a lot of low end like a ballad. There are tricks to getting down to -5, when a song sounds terrible at -5 its probably because the mixer didn't know the tricks. More of how loud a song can go is determined in the mix and not during mastering.
@@dodgingrain3695 huh? No one said it was hard. Squishing is easier, no dynamics is easy. That does not equate to sound quality. And your last sentence is assuming that all genres are supposed to be mixed the same.
Listen to love story from Taylor Swift. It's really soft. So loudness doesn't matter. What matters is consistency in the songs dynamics
Dynamic range
@@kodykindhart5644 Yea
Loudness can still be soft.
@@Kenneth-F I consider it as "energy". The more consistent the energy, the less shock your ear drums go through at random times.
-11 -10 and even-12 sounds great unless it's EDM or metal. Clean and dynamic is the way to go. Some of this shit is so loud that from beginning to end, the song loses its flavor. Thanks for the content. I appreciate it, my brother from another.
Well thank you!🙏
I've been finding 9.5 -10.5 perfect for my tastes , and I'm living there from now on lol
Thanks for sharing. How ever i do belive different songs need different lufs. 🙏@@paulkype
Finally someone who gets this dead horse topic right :D !!!
👍🫶
I dont care... I want my music sounding dynamic...fuck all that!!!!
And thats the reason i said that you should make it sound as good as you want and then make it loud as u can without interference with the sound.
Your listeners want it to sound right for the genre.
Nobody cares too. They just would skip your -inf LUFS mixes ☺
My music requires a pleasant experience for people. That experiences deteriorates north of -14 Lufs.
Loudness wars over
And actually no- there’s more to it than Spotify just turning your tracks down via normalization. There’s also the -1 one true peak protocol- which if it is not adhered to can cause automatic normalization to smash an otherwise sounding good mix. Honestly, this kind of sounds like 2005 thinking to me.
You are correct about that. How ever that dont mean you should master to -14lufs.
@@Kenneth-F I get it, I’m listening and I understand where you’re coming from
@@Kenneth-F if I’m understanding everyone correctly, with the understanding that there is a tremendous amount of material out there that does not benefit from being squashed - especially the kind of material I’m doing, he can also be said that if we’re not getting out there at Full, professional loudness we are hamstringing ourselves
All platforms just lower the volume except TikTok (they are using compression). But who cares since there are no Taylor Swift tracks on TikTok anymore LOL
😆
I totally got to like 13 LUFS and seen this video and I was like...that's it, not one more LUF for me.
Just use your ear. 😊
Good information to know.
Your welcome! 🙂
I master to -21 to -23 LUFS. Which happens to be the requirement for European television. I love my mixes. The headroom keeps things breathing.
If you are mastering for tv and movies then your good to go. Thats not what this was about. 🙂
@@Kenneth-F I know you’re not calling for the level that I’m speaking of, but I mention it because my stuff is on both Apple Music and Spotify. The reason I mix that quietly is because I do mostly ambient music. And when I checked my references from the masters, like Brian Eno, etc. all of their recordings were hovering around that area. Whenever I went above that, my mixes sounded awful. That said - if you’re doing quiet music, you definitely don’t want to squash it because all the dynamics and sense of space are entirely lost. And space… Is especially what ambient music is about. ✌️
100% agree!@@Tyrell_Corp2019
It’s the compression. It’s not the normalization. You cannot choose. Your song will get squished here on UA-cam and all the stores if it peaks above -13 LUFS or abouts. Loudness Wars are over because digital domain. It has nothing to do with how loud your song ends up to the listener! Or whatever do what you want
Thanks for sharing. How ever its not true. Spotify and youtube dont compress. They normalize.
-14 lufs is plenty loud though, is the thing thing. All a digital file is, is a container. The amplifier makes the song loud. What's Thriller? -14 lufs? -13.98? Has any other album made as much money or sound as good as Thriller? ehhh no.
Film scores like Titanic, Braveheart, they have ridiculously low lufs and peaks. They can be amplified to a point that will almost deafen you on the correct system.
The opening theme to Star Wars is -15 lufs, nearly blasts you down into your seat when it starts.
The intro to ROYGBIV by Boards of Canada is -17 lufs, it's overall average is -13.3, amazing sounding recording.
If we want to get higher fidelity and record for posterity, we need to healthy lower levels that aren't distorting converters.
Nice try. How ever Thriller has been remaster and are now at about -9.5 lufs. And about film score, well the standard in movies are -27lufs and dont have anything to do with what i talk about in my video.
and the remaster of Thriller doesn't sound good. You're not getting my point about what a waveform is. Go ahead and continue using a file format as an "amplifier".@@Kenneth-F
Half true. Yes make it sound great (by ear). No to having level "targets".
The audio on this video for example is a good, clear level: YT has barely lowered it. Others that are over-compressed and loud are typically lowered by as much as -6 to -16dB. (right click: Stats for nerds and check the Normalised % ).
But it IS another cause for 24 bit audio, as the likelihood is that your 16 bit audio will be subject to further gain changes.
Thanks for your input. Wait you can see how much is normalized?
If you are green at mastering and take the advice given here - in a few years you will be looking back at your -6 LUFS noob masters and regret it.
The advice is not -6db. My advice is to make the master sound as good as you can and then make it as loud as you can without interference with the sound.
My point is that an inexperienced mastering engineer, will take your advice of -6 to -8 and make it as loud as possible, often not being able to hear the damage done to the dynamics. Instead, if an inexperienced engineer would aim for something a little more conservative, like -10 to -14 LUFS, the damage to the dynamics most likely won't be so severe.
You dont even need to be that advanced to hear that shit isnt right once i had a basic understanding of a limiter and clipping @hjorte.
Master two versions of your mix. The normal way and then one for -14 LUFS if you're going to place it into UA-cam's platform. I haven't found a plugin or software than can convert your audio to -14 LUFS automatically without ruining your ceiling of -1 dB.
Or just make one master as loud as you like and dont care. Works for all,the pro albums. 🤷♂️
Nowadays you just make it sound good and ignore the loudness war, because it will be normalized by (most) enduser devices. Some styles need the lowest dyn. range and it's ok. They can crush their masters but won't get any louder than the rest when playing live. In essence it's like using a limiter for its sound like we do with the compressors. But limiters are built to be super transparent..... hence the spiral of confussion.
Exept when People dont use normalize and as I discovered when spotify released its "your year in spotify " that was not normalized. Just make your master as loud as possible without interference with the sound. 🙏
@@Kenneth-F Most of the platforms will turn it down if it's already too loud, but won't turn it up if it's too low.
Another reason to master it as loud as you can without interference with the sound. 🙏@@miquelmarti6537
@@Kenneth-F There is no hard rule. Some styles benefit from that interference, plus a very high dynamic range is problematic on most cheapo devices people use to listen to.
@@miquelmarti6537 Not true afaik. I think only Amazon doesn't turn it up.
Genre specific but the problem is when nice dynamic music is butchered to less than -12 LUFS. There is a volume knob for a reason. Most "Remastered" tracks on streaming platforms are worse than the original. I put a Fleetwood Mac song and turn the volume and hear all the dynamics and emotions. Put the remastered and everything is slammed to the wall and you can't really turn the volume up.
Well yes, but the numbers are not interesting. Just use your ears. I know for shure i get a lot higher than -12lufs most of the times. But still it all depends on the song.
Listen to P.O.D. - "Satellite" and Static-X - "Machine" remasters, those really helped.
so let's just keep the loudness war going, shall we?
No, you should make it as loud as possible without interference with sound quality. That means not cutting frequens just to make it louder.
I've found that -9 to -12 db lufs is the sweet spot, too loud it starts to sound harsh to the ear amd to low it starts to sound sterile and boring.
Thanks for sharing! I dont think that the numbers are that important. It all depends on the song. Guessing you mastering music thats sounds almost the same.
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 with out 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 digital/analog clipping became 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.
And thats why i said make it as loud as you can without interference with the sound. 😏
@@Kenneth-F Roger, 4sho you know this. Just wanted to drop some guidance if any green person was open to it. I hate how the industry feels the need to keep things so hush hush. I know we all need to make money but geshhhhh.
Pointless. Everybody learned from somebody else to some degree. Plus, even if you give two experienced people the same track, you will get two different results. Different gear, different ears, & different perspective. We all, by nature's design, have a different sound. No getting around it. It's pointless to try and keep things hidden.
Free love, free knowledge!✌🏾
100% agree!@@taviqmasteringonline2754
That's exactly the number where I find things go immediately downhill afterwards
if you're compiling a compilation you need to know the lufs of the ' quietist track ' when it is peaking at true 0db ( this will normally be the track with the most sensible dynamic range ) . . you need then to normalise all the other tracks within the compilation to that LUFS to get a balanced loudness so no track dominates loudness wise
THEN YOU CAN PLAY IT ON ANY SOUND SYSTEM AS LOUD OR AS QUIET THAT SUITS ( ALL TRACKS WILL HAVE THE SAME LOUDNESS )
for individual tracks LUFS has no significance
when doing your masters do a good dynamic mix ( DONT SQUASH THE FUCK OUT OF IT ) . . normalise to 0db peak . . that way it will be as loud as possible on any system . . . let the broadcasters worry about the LUFS ( Not as they ever do )
Good point. Thanks for sharing!
I knew this was bullshit. Thanks for confirming!
Your welcome.
it just doesnt make sense, i upload a -8 lufs track to youtube and its not loud, it makes the audio quiet, please someone help
Without hearing it im guessing you have compressed it to much. Dont look at numbers. Use you ears.🙏
Every professional mastering engineer i've worked with is around -8lufs for streaming. Most of them don't even do the 1db headroom thingy
They are afraid. End of story.
@@hjorte. yes they are afraid of their master falling behind against other tracks you would too if you had any braincells you know?
1:23 I don't think, if the volume is too low, spotify etc. can simply just pull up the fader, when it's already peaking at 0 dBFS. The other thing is: I don't see a point, why users should switch off the normalization mode. It's there for a reason. Someone in the comments mentioned that -6LUFS lowered to -14 is still louder than -14 original. In a few cases this may be right, but LUFS actually calculates perceived loudness already. What he's referring to may be RMS. I would advice to master something to achieve the sound you like and then make sure that it's -14 LUFS at least (depending on the genre of course. Classical music at -14 is not good sounding). My masters usually reach the -12 to -10 LUFS, almost never higher, but it's more acoustic pop, blues and stuff like that.
The only reason is that you are competing with the pro albums. And if normalization button is not on then your tracks at -14 will be super low. Discovered that when i got my Spotify wrapped. Yours master at -12 to -10 should be just perfect.
@@Kenneth-F Yeah I got that. But I think, normalization is on by default. I wonder, how many people turn that off and why they do that.
Good question. Dont know the answer.🙂
Even a master at -5 lowered to -14 will sound more dense than a -14 Master. Perceived loudness Matters too.
More dense means shittier. No dynamics, your rock song's drums will not hit anymore. They will be some kind of a lukewarm squashed thing. It will lose all the goodies.
I mean make it dense with saturation/harmonics not squash it to death. I agree you must preserve the transients; so important.@@jamesnyers1721
Im not shure im follow you now. Please brake it down to me.
@@jamesnyers1721 dynamic ≠ better
It is to me. My big speakers say the same.@@hithere4289
I don't know if it's possible to master something to -6 LUFS and still have a good sound. Most of the loud ones sound like shit to me. Maybe because I am old-school I don't listen to songs through my phones tiny speakers. Instead i listen on big speakers at home and in the car.
Yeah not many mastering engineers can pull of -6db and it all depends on the song and mix.
some top pro mixing and mastering engineers can deliver really loud while still sounding amazing. I guess they are the top ones for a reason
@@hithere4289 _ Please give us some specific songs mastered in the -5db to -8db range that you think sound amazing.
Mastering at -14 LUFS being the new meta was such an obvious lie but I guess it's easy to fall for when so many influencers present misinformation with confidence.
When many people telling a lie, eventually it becomes the truth.
The worse part (and this is well documented) is the data compression of the quality on UA-cam. It's not that they are compressing the signal, it's that they are compressing the data. They are bringing everything down to 160kbps mpeg even if your encoded file is AAC or WAV lossless. There is no way to disable it.
Well we are all working within the same rules.
@@Kenneth-Fthat's actually a great answer..
Spotify WILL use some processing if master BELOW -14 LUFs
Also if one song -10 and another -5 or so, they would be diffrent even if they playing on same actual volume, so more chance what more LUFs will sound better regardles of normalisation, its that i understand for now :)
What type of processing do they use and where did you get that information?
@@Kenneth-F well, yes, this is not the case now, but it was a couple of years ago, now the limitation is applied only in the loud mode
@@your_chel That did not answer any of my questions. 🤷♂
@Kenneth-F then read more carefully 🤷
they used limiters for quiet songs, now they are used only in "loud mode"
and as for where this information comes from - from videos like yours or articles, but they are two years old
however, doing more than 14 LUFs and not thinking about it further is wrong, because you need to remember the connection between LUFs and True Peak, and leave -1 dB for the master in -14 LUFs, and -2 dB for the master with a large LUFs value, if it is meant to be listened to in lossless format too.
your message in the video should rather be that you need to understand the details, and not blindly chase after who said or showed what on UA-cam
@@your_chel well, your wrong and i wanted you to prove what your saying. So far you have not. According to peak where did you get that information?
I should not be arguing with anyone, however as a long time music fan I can tell you that I do not like the sound of -8 LUFS or below. At all. I hate it. I have never heard anything mastered like that that sounds anything but irritating. The audience has a volume knob if they want something loud. There must be a consistent volume level for radio and streaming outlets for the sanity of the audience. That being said, to master to -14 doesn't make sense, I agree.
Good point. How ever it all depends on the song(music style) Thats why i said ”you should eq and compress to taste and then make the master as loud as possible without interference with the sound.
Appreciate your vid, but
Dont agree...sorry. 40 yrs of mixing, worked with Bob Katz, Bernie Grundman etc. I cant tell you; stop listening to this stuff on youtube (no offense). -6, -8 etc means nothing without context.
Its not the 90s anymore and the worst thing you can do is paint with the same brush every time. Mixing a sparse acoustic track @-8 makes it sound like its in a tiny box when AB with a master that is context correct; equal loudness comparison
Thanks to the guys above for speaking truth when it was all madness. I still mix to K-14 because its so easy to feel it. If you want more density then top down it, on the busses.
The more your taste and listening skills develop, the more fatiguing it all becomes unless you are listening in a space that demands it ie earbuds on train. K-12 STILL rules as the sweetspot that an audiophile can enjoy and still make space for mix without smearing the life out of everything. Just remember its art AND physics...less is more, a snare whack 6db less, is a whack 6db less.
If it sounds good, it is good.
Think about it...take all this 'information' with a grain of salt before you make it your knowledge.
@Anything about music - To really get a handle, would love to hear some of your premium tracks that you have mixed? Do you have a playlist of best 3?
And thats why I said you should master your song as loud as possible without interference with the sound. The whole point of the episode was to use your ear and not look at numbers.🙏
@@Kenneth-F Cheers for the reply. My response was mostly to the comments and the interpretation of the video. My point was that all of this was sorted decades ago...just no one was 'listening' ;-) K-12 STILL rocks as the sweetspot and you can mix calibrated to it with absolute monitoring levels, saving damaging the tools...our hearing too.
All the best!
Thanks for your input. 🙏@@iam-music
I never master at -14 always at -8 or -6
Sound like your good to go!
Hi, one question, what mic are you using for this video or is just the mic from the phone/camera? it sounds really natural
Hi! Its a Rode nt3 in to a Golden age pre73jr and then in to Klark Teknik kt-76 20:1 ratio.
@@Kenneth-Fthank you for the detailed reply
Your welcome! 🤗
take the sidechain challenge. drop your vocals into the mix.
learn how to side chain compression between bass and kick drum , bus vocal reverbs and you wont need to ultra max too much
Im sidechaining all the time. Dont see what that has to do with anything. 🤷♂️🤦♂️
@@Kenneth-F don't take it personal just sayin lol
Still dont see what sidechain has to do with how loud a master should be?
nonsense. -14 is good for many stuff. Spotify, iTunes etc. level music tracks up.
Shure, as long as the listener using the normalization button your good to go!
@@Kenneth-F Am I right in thinking that this option only exists when listening on desktop and also on desktop, normalisation is on by default?
@@WillGoring no this option exist on my smartphone. One problem is even though i have the normalization button in when spotify released ”your year on spotify” it was NOT normalized.
Dolby Atmos for Music: nuh uh! -18 lufs or your mix will get rejected if you exceed our spec.
Well, where not talking about Atmos here.
Listen to Dan Worrall's loudest song which mastered at +2.3 LUFS! LOL!
@@SuperAgentAB No thanks. Think you have a little hang up on numbers. Thats not what this episode is about.
Actually, EDM has a -5 dB LUFS.
Stop looking at numbers. Please use your ears.
Why not take full advantage of the bit depth of the file, and master to something like -1 dBFS? That way, it will only ever need turned down (not up), and makes the most use of the dynamic range of the file format, resulting in a better signal to noise ratio.
Are we talking lufs or dbfs now?
@@Kenneth-F Well, I guess I assumed too much. I don't really know what a "loudness unit" is. I just figured that making it as loud as it can get without any type of distortion would be optimal because it will only need turned down when normalizing it with other tracks.
@@chinering23 Ah, so my old hunch (that I disregarded when making my original comment) was right. It's a subjective scale of perceived loudness. And in my experience, the more the volume of a sound/song changes in a short time frame, the louder it feels; like a jackhammer of noise on the ear. That dubstep piece illustrates it well. And I wasn't even listening with headphones.
Just do what sounds good right? Also, it is really genre specific, classical music wont sound good on -8 lufs. On bigger sound systems more dynamic range will be more beneficial (in some aspects).
Well off course your right. How ever im trying to take away the numbers and just telling people to use their ears.
In that case the quality of your audio is compromised when you upload it on spotify, youtube. They have an automatic algorithm that makes your audio pathetic. It's actually very frustrating! Recently I faced couple of instances when my (professionally done) master sounded perfect everywhere but it ended up sounding something else on spotify. UA-cam, however was better than apple & spotify and spotify was the worst.
Well we are all on the platforms with the same rules.
I am curious as to how many turn off normalization? You would think the vast majority would keep it on as no one likes uneven volume between songs they play
Exactly.
Not that many. But there will alwayes be someone. And when i got my Spotify wrapped the music didnt play with normalization.
I tend to do +3LUFS
What ever works for you. 🙏
Honestly, I wonder if this obsession with “loud” is killing the dynamics, and thus inadvertently make everything sound less interesting and actually less loud. If you listen to the same song used for end credits of a movie, it will usually sound more punchy, hitting you harder without sounding harsh. Same with live performances where they aren’t compressing the life out of everything, though even that seems rare these days.
Cranking up to concert level, should hit like a concert, while not feeling like pink noise with some oscillating eq’s. But, that doesn’t translate well to the car I guess. Radio, well… that’s a story for another day. Still think a lot of albums first released on vinyl sounds more dynamic than their CD version. Should not be like that, from a technical perspective, but it is a mastering decision behind it, and it stems from the loudness war.
Good point and thats why i said you should first get the master to sound good and then make it as loud as possible without interference with the sound.
Integrated LUFS or short term?!?! When you're talking about db's, are you talking about RMS or peak???
Dont get hung up on numbers. The point i was making is that you should make your master sound as good as you can and then make it as loud as you can without interference with sound to much. Just let go of numbers! 🙏
@@Kenneth-F I'm definitely not hung up on numbers, but what's the point of going over all the values you talk about in your video, if you're not telling anyone if you mean rms or peak? It cancels everything you just said and makes me feel like watching your video was totally worthless. Despite me mostly agreeing with you, metering in every stage in my chains is definitely a helpful tool to keep me in check with where I can go and what my limits are. I don't enjoy how pushing any plugins to their max sounds, despite sometimes going that direction for creativity. Without specifying peak or rms though, how does any composer, producer, or mixer have any idea of what you are talking about?
Im talking about Lufs in the episode. Lufs is a measure of an avarage level signal over time. That means not peak. But its clear my point didnt get to you. Put on a great album and compare your master to it.@@mikedextro
I’m not sure why you are implying that I don’t know what LUFS are and how they differ from db, or dbVU. I know the difference between those and VU too. Good day.
…as well as the difference between integrated LUFS and Root Mean Squared. My Vinyl collection is about 2000, still not sure why you mention these things. Do you want to know how many cds, MP3’s and streaming subscriptions I have too?
I agree with that 💪 what about true peak? 0db it's ok
Probably, im going -0,3 just to be safe but I have not done any research on it. Might look into it in the future!
Would you push a limiter just for its sonic characteristics, and then turn down the volume to compensate, as you would a compressor? Because if you aim for higher than -14 LUFS, that's in essence what you are doing for all the listeners that use normalization (i.e., almost everyone on digital platforms).
The normalization will bring down the volume. Thats correct. And the normalization dont change the sound. How ever when not in normalization mode your master dont stand a chance next to a pro mastering. I discovered that the hard way when listening to my spotify year wrap. The normalization didnt work on that.
Hello I have been reflecting on this for years now and I will have to 100% agree on you. Any actual GOOD mix or master will not have a sonic difference when ABing between lets say a -7 or a -14 track. This is just the truth, and if people can hear a dfference on their end it is because they are not good enough and cannot achieve a loud track like the pros do.
Sorry, had to say it!
its time to step up your game if you dont like going louder than -14
Good point!
Your master should be as loud as other successfully commercial songs in the same genre all other things being equal. You want your song to fit in with other songs that a listener might be listening to if your song was in that rotation. You DO NOT want to make it as loud as you can. You want to make it as loud as is appropriate for the genre.
Thats pretty much the same. Sence the pro makes it as loud as they can without interference with the sound.
What is the benefit for people choosing to turn off normalization on UA-cam, Spotify? I don't get it.
Dont know? 🤷♂️ But whats the benefit for not master our songs like the pro?
@@Kenneth-F the benefit are if you want to be able to play something very loud on good speakers . Over limited masters sound better on small speaker in a noisy environment .... when I play a track mastered at - 8 on my nice speakers I immediately reach for the volume knob and turn it down by a lot , when it is around - 6 I just hit stop and move on .
@@Dystopian84 so your using a lufs meter when you listening to music. Depending on how high lufs ther is you stop to listen. 🙄
@@Kenneth-F no usually over limited stuff sounds bad when played at a high volume on good speakers so I immediately lower the volume .... over limited to -6 just sounds laughably dated to my ears , brings back bad memories from 2012
If you don't care about these numbers (-14 lufs), then the quality of your audio is compromised when you upload it on spotify, youtube. They have an automatic algorithm that makes your audio pathetic. It's actually very frustrating! Recently I faced couple of instances when my (professionally done) master sounded perfect everywhere but it ended up sounding something else on spotify. UA-cam, however was better than apple & spotify and spotify was the worst.
I have music on Spotify with -14lufs and -8lufs. They both sound as good as all my other platforms. How come all the pro albums can sound good with -8 lufs and yours cant?
thats what I call LIES. if whatever you say were true then all main artists and labels would upload their music at -14 everytime but this is not the case why is that? because it sounds exactly the same 😄
Anurag, you didn't use the scientific method. This is easy to test and verify to disprove your post. Upload -14 and -8 LUFS tracks and then use Audio DiffMaker against the originals. Your post sounds plausible for low-information superstitious people, except what you posted is actually gossip and guessing and storytelling. You sound scared and intimidated by technology. Instead of being scared and imagining stories and tales about the stuff that scares you, use the scientific method to test and prove it yourself so you don't have to always live in a fog of superstition.
Sorry, I don't agree. There are levels to this game. I have so far spent 30+ years learning about this from some of the masters.
Please tell me more.
The point should not be to decrease dynamics. Mastering a track to -8 LUFS will almost always ruin the dynamics of an average mix. I personally don’t know anyone who turns off the normalisation on Spotify, because it’s a great feature. Where you can make the difference is with (parallel) compression, EQ, harmonic distortion and other tricks to make the mix stand out and “feel” loud while still averaging at -14 LUFS.
And thats why i said you should master your song so it sounds good and then make it as loud as you can without interfering with the sound. The numbers are not what your going for. Use your ears.