Mini Masterclass: Loudness Targets for Mastering (...It's not what the streaming services tell you)
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- Опубліковано 30 бер 2021
- Ever wonder how hot you should be setting your levels in mixing and mastering? In the real world, the targets are not what the streaming services recommend. And it varies by genre!
Get all the details here, with Justin Colletti of SonicScoop.
Thanks to Fabfilter for helping make this video free to the public. Try out the Pro L 2 limiter used in this video, or any of their other tools, totally for free for 30 days at fabfilter.com
Thanks to the artists Twin Lights, Moon Machine, Morning Hawk, and Sam Small for allowing us to use their music in this video.
Check them out at:
Twin Lights
/ @twinlights2531
Moon Machine
moonmachinemusic.bandcamp.com/
Morning Hawk
/ @marcushawkinsmusic
Sam Small
samsmallmusic.com/
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#mastering #loudness #mixing #audioengineer #LUFS
Found your comment from a Reddit thread. I have been producing for 3 years and I want to start putting my things out so learning to master is something I'm very new to.
Just wanted to say thank you for taking the time to make this video!
Thanks so much for checking out the channel! Glad to have you here :-)
-Justin
As always, thanks so much for making these informative tutorials. I like seeing these things done in different tools too. Keep up the good work!
Great presentation! As I have said before, hope you will continue to offer more of these mini classes.
Sir Justin, thanks for giving us priceless jewels, continue educating us, we appreciate you full 💯 bless up yuhself 👍🏽👍🏽
Excellent video. Tons of great stuff here.
Indeed a timely insight into the realities of modern mastering levels. The subject has been driving me loopy for quite a while, thanks for providing some clarity and sensible advice 🙏😎
Very true!!
Ahhh something I’ve been so confused about! Thank you!
this is awesome explanations, thank you very much Justin
Really great info and demo! Thank you!
A well-balanced low end also allows for more perceived loudness and a brighter mix - don't forget about your relationships between frequencies and how they affect one another! I'd always prefer a mix that 'seems' louder than it actually is rather than pushing a track to its limit :) Thanks for the video, Justin! ❤️
Absolutely! Spot on. Thanks for sharing your track and your take.
Well said. Often the low end takes up so much energy and “space” without contributing towards perceived loudness
Invaluable info, you are a master of your art.
loudness is in the mixing!
Absolutely. Mastering can make it louder, but the best and loudest-sounding clean masters come from arrangement, recordings and mixes that were crafted with that in mind.
Loudness is also in the production, arrangement, sound choices etc....
Really insightful and informative glimpse into the voodoo that is mastering! LOVE the Fabfilter plug ins on the production side of life for Techno and House. Timeless and Volcano are great effects plug ins and the Fabfilter One synth is a little hidden gem for basslines.
Great stuff! Thank you! I am learning as I go!
These videos are a gift to the music community, thanks Justin.
So awesome to hear, thanks Francesco!
-Justin
Hey Justin, Eric Hochwald of Moon Machine here. I like the way that Saturn plugin sounds, I should get it myself!
Just don't pan it in mastering :D
This is so awesome Justin. This is really helping me to get a better idea of mastering. I have a lot to learn but you certainly have been pointing me in the right direction. From a home producer/engineer, Thank you!!
Awesome to hear! So happy to be useful.
-Justin
Wonderful Video! Thank you so much
Very interesting and informative, thanks!
A brilliant lesson. Thank you very much. You should be a guest on Pensado's Place. Dave would love this.
great workshop
thanks for this tutorial another gr8 class
Great vid. Thanks!
Awesome- this is a GREAT video
Why thank you brother, good to have you watching! This video must really be getting out there :-)
“Loud and clear” is a mantra that I live by when I master a track
This is gold
Been listening to the podcast and to apply a face to a voice is awesome haha
Great vid!
Awesome to hear, thanks for tuning in!
-Justin
Amazing 👏
Great great stuff your such a great teacher
Thanks! Great to hear. So glad to be helpful!
The outer ring on the Saturn Plugin is the panning of the distortion.
Understanding the entire volume thing has been a giant confusing issue. It is right there with understanding bit depth and sample rates. Thank you sir
Nice!
EDM you're looking at between 7 and 4 LUFS. The extreme squash of 4 is Skrillex level and is largely done in the mix down. That said, very fair assessment.
This topic never ceases to haunt us music producers and audio engineers 🙈
I also realized these perceived loudness differences the hard way I uploaded my master to Spotify at I guess -11 lufs and it was a few dB quieter than the other masters even though they are all played back at around -14 lufs, I think it’s about the ratio between lufs and rms level in this case, so I start referencing with vu and rms meters and boom it went away after hitting the rms levels of my references 🙏🏼
I know this is an old comment but I've recently had the same issue (as most other beginners). I made sure I hit what was the sweet spot (-14) and my track was much lower and I noticed the dynamics were out. As you say, I realised it was about relationships rather than a fix all lufs number. I'm learning a lot. Important points, thanks!
Thanks for the videos Justin. I was wondering if you could do a video at some point that talks more about the process for mastering an EP (or album) instead of just individual tracks. What you listen for in terms of level matching the tracks (or not), the flow between the songs etc...
Great idea. Will see of I can hit that sometime. The short answer is that once you’ve mastered one track you can now throw away all your other references, and just use that first mastered track as your primary reference for loudness and tone, mostly by ear. (Although you also want to reference adjacent tracks against eachother.)
The long answer would discuss a lot of the issues you may run into trying to do this, particularly when tracks have wildly different arrangements, instrumentation and production standards.
Sometimes, you’ll have to avoid pushing tracks that are easy to make loud as loud as they could go so that they will sit properly next to tracks that won’t. Sometimes you have to make the most bombastic tracks a little less bombastic so you don’t overwork the less bombastic ones to much.
Hope that helps!
-Justin
@@SonicScoop Thanks Justin, that does help to think of it that way. Cheers!
Not always true but a lot of case, yes, since the songs volume is consistent. I mean Its good you are mentioning integrated, because a lot of guys are looking at momentary. Integrated is the whole program. So a track that is really dynamic the softer parts could play at -14lufs Momentary and then have a short burst of loud part at -8lufs momentary. And it wont be turned down if has -14lufs integrated. Here 's the point, if your track is so smashed, that LUFS integrated and RMS and Peak would likely be in the same ball park. lets say a track mastered above -14LUFS when turned down due to the material, its highest peak is left at -14dbfs. Another track that is within the LUFS target could have a peak at -6dbfs and its quiet parts still in -14LUFS integrated, that dynamic track softest part would be just as high as your loudest smashed track. The whole problem with LUFS is the mindset, people are still thinking like working with peak meters. Its program dependent. some tracks will benefit from it and will be way louder if within target, some songs wnt. This is really something we used in films, we arent squashing the track hence "mastering" to get -14LUFS isnt as what most are thinking it is. Its track dependent, a program/track thats within -14lufs coud have higher peaks,( depends on the song) than somethings that is squashed to get -9LUFS, meaning lower in volume once turned down. Its not about the number thats the problem, its about how smashed is your track that affects how low your level is. Not the number, thats why its just a target. So if you dont really work with LUFS and dont understand it well, just dont, for music, he is right, its about the tone.
Hey man. This video is awesome and I love the fact you explain the principles and not just the cheat sheet at the start. When you’re saying listening to up against your favourite records, what is the best method of doing this, as in where to reference too, is it best to buy from somewhere like iTunes and directly reference? Thank you.
The best way I’ve been able to reference is to yes buy from iTunes or Amazon, then import the track directly into the mastering session. So that you hear both on the exact same speaker setup. Unfortunately you may have to manually record the song into your session. But I find having both (or more) songs in the session easy and straightforward referencing 💯
Probably the most professional channel on UA-cam ever.
I'm looking for some kind of que when you switch from unmastered to mastered. Mixed but unmastered at 3:17. Mastered version 4:09. Rock unmastered version 11:27. Rock Mastered version 11:50. Unmastered vs mastered demo again 16:24. Spotify recommended level is -14dB luft level. Luft meters measure dynamic range looking at peak levels vs average level.
Hey there Justin! Thanks for everything! One question: on the hip hop track... aren't those low end filters distorting phase considerably?
This vid was spot on about loudness for streaming .... minus 8 rms or even minus 7 rms will sound louder on streamer than trying to get minus 14 lufs even though it’s getting turned down...I’ve tried both
True story! You are not alone. You don’t always need to go that loud, though it certainly can work when done well. But there is definitely good reason to go louder than -14 in most genres.
@@SonicScoop one hundred percent 💯👌
Exactly! Mastering directly for -14 lufs never sounded equal to another song that was mastered louder and then turned down to -14 lufs. Dont follow these "temporary streaming services" because when streaming is out and a new way to listen music comes about, your song is gonna be compromised. Learn your own music genre and master for what the norm is considered in that music genre. If your genre calls for -16 lufs, master for that. If your genre calls for -5 lufs, master for that.
Last track I mastered was in fact around -5..so for my taste normally a bit too much. BUT it sounded good in wav or 320 MP3 - as soon uploaded to YT sounds shitty :( The track however was not mixed flawless and only 16bit, I guess with 24bit, better mix and more headroom I could be much better.. also the YT algorythm seems to be quite sucky - I mostly perceive Soundcloud as better (?). Spotify "preview" version also seems worse..
@@SonicScoop I also uploaded with "tunes2tube" is it possible this degrades audio even if they say it does not?
I just add Softube Tape in Studio One’s Mix Engine FX and it acts like a multitrack tape machine, so loudness war is over for me.
Great content. Perhaps you could shed more light on dynamic range in context of intro and drop. I’ve been working on a song where the intro has little content but the drop/body has so much content.. Drums, vocals, synths, pads. It’s been very hard for me to find a level that the drop doesn’t sound like one massive explosion in relation to the song intro. What do you suggest i do about that? Should i add more tracks to the intro or remove tracks from the body of the song to balance the loudness levels out? If i do that, i’d be changing the soul of my song. Help!!
My genre is hiphop. Ive tried to master for -14 lufs range and my songs always felt inadequate, dull and lifeless compared to the hiphop songs i grew up on. Compression has a sound especially in rap. Hip-hop music coming out today in 2021 is still hitting -8 and -7 on lufs meters. The only people complaining about the loudness wars are all the amateur bedroom producers who know nothing about mixing and mastering but want all the skilled engineers to compromise their hard earned skills theyve spent the last 10-20 years acquiring to suit their lack of skills. I used to hit -10 or -11 lufs on my masters but it wasnt until i invested months and years of research into properly knowing how to mix and master for loudness that i was able to reach -7 or -6 lufs easy. -14 lufs is WAY to quiet for "normal" standards. What are you going to do if streaming lufs standards decides to change from -14 to -9? Id rather master to -6 lufs and have my music turn down than to mix for -14 and your music cant go any louder. To any beginner mixers/masterers reading this post comment, stop expecting to have your songs hit as loud as you want them to without devoting blood, sweat and tears to this engineering craft! It takes time!
Listener's perspective: if a song is too quiet on average, you can turn the knob and enjoy. If the song's brickwalled, you can't do anything about it, it will sound choked. Yes, louder sounds better, but as far as Spotify etc. punishes the excesive loudness for everyone it's a fair game. I believe the experienced engineers can adapt quite fine.
I have some question , How much headroom (dB) that i should leave before i go Mastering ? and what ceiling output in Limiter should i go ? Thanks for the video so much bro
If you’re going to a mastering engineer shooting for -14 average level or lower is great, unless you’re loving the sound of going hotter.
Anywhere from -22 to -18 average level for mixing is very safe if you want to leave loudness and most all the bus processing to a mastering engineer. But you don’t have to go that quiet if you’re getting great results at a hotter level.
EDM mixes might be louder right out the gate, sometimes more like -12 to -8 even before mastering. Sometimes hip hop can be on the louder side at the mix stage as well.
Honestly, the peak level doesn’t matter TOO much because the mastering engineer can just turn it down. Some people will give specific targets for that but I don’t.
0 is fine for peaks as long as it’s not more crushed than it should be.. -1 is fine. -3 is fine and starts to make it unlikely that I have to turn it down to improve my gain staging which is nice. -6 is fine but a bit conservative.
Ultimately, the output of the final master wants to be lower than 0 on a True Peak meter. If you’re not using a True Peak limiter, this could require shooting for a lower peak level on a traditional limiter.
Some streaming services recommend going for a True Peak level of -1, (or as low as -2 for louder masters) but I’ve found that this is pretty conservative and you can get distortion free results out of the codecs at higher levels than this.
Hope that helps,
Justin
On speaking voice a lot of smart phones , computer etc don't have enough volume so it is hard to hear you talk.
i would bring yours up a few on that.
The music samples on my andriod I 'm listening on right now sounded good -9 even -8 because I could hear them.
When I record hard rock I shoot for no more than -7 and they sound great on the platforms.
For the radio stuff they are still in that loudness war I have found -6 into -5 land.
My limited recoding equipment will not get me there and sound clean.
Some people can do it, put on a Nickleback CD and check how loud that is, its crazy!..
Lufs might have been a thing. But i dont think it is anymore.. They will still turn it down. But it will still be louder than uploading 14 lufs. From my experience anyway.
Try ADTPR streamliner plugin from plugin alliance. It's a brilliant purpose built utility for metering Luffs targets that are set by the streaming platforms. It has Luffs presets for most genres and If your mixes are good this tool is dare I say, a game changer for achieving loud, clear and technically precise masters all while preserving the dynamics of the mix.
May also be a cool idea for a future mastering video...;)
Do you mean ADPTR Audio Streamliner? It’s a good one!
@@SonicScoop yes that's the one. 😝
Is the low mix j. Cole song you talk about called "middle child" ?
So the new loudness war will be making tracks brighter and brighter until the bass no longer exists ... haha cool.
Haha! It’s funny but things actually seem to be moving in this direction 🙈
I love you content but, should i master with a ceiling of -0.5 or -1?
Anyways UA-cam also use a lossy format and my buddy Cwilliam has master some tracks for me with a ceiling of -1 and the final product was as loud a -9lufs.
Would you recommend to listen to this session on consumer level speakers or monitors and if you say on monitors then why ?
I would say it depends. Whichever is the best set of speakers. The word "monitor" is more about marketing 2-way powered speakers to the studio market - it shouldn't be assumed to mean "better".
Conversion to .mp3 on youtube and other platforms can result in new intersample peaks. Give yourself some headroom, at least 0.4db on the true peak limiter output
Yes you should! Especially if you are not using a True Peak limiter. But in this case, I knew that I wasn't going to play back the audio samples normalized to 0dbFS so it didn't really matter :-)
I believe the files are turned down by a couple dB in the video editing session, and then the final output of the video is like -1 or something, so it's not a problem we run into here. But good point, and something I probably should have explained.
hey Justin , what about using a dynamic eq instead of a eq and compressor , ¿?
I love dynamic EQ. I’m more likely to use it in place of traditional EQ or in place of a multiband compressor or de-esser.
I’m looking for something different out of a traditional compressor in mastering. That’s more about overall envelope shaping.
Hope that makes sense!
-Justin
I liked way more the unmastered edm track. But I am not a really edm listener and I guess with the big ass bass systems they usually use in edm clubs probably the mastered versión would sound better
yes, the quieter parts in a -14LUFFS master are actually quieter. But don't forget that the louder parts will actually be a lot louder than the loudest sections mastered at something like -9 LUFFS.
I'm actually interested in your opinion on loudness normalization. The motivation for it was that genres not suited for heavy limiting had to do limiting even if they didn't want to. But now, the loudness normalization forces modern music to adapt. Is the move for loudness normalization justified in your view?
Yes, I think it's a positive good. It removes the incentive to push things just a little bit louder to beat the next guy at the detriment to your own sound. And, it makes it easier to listen to very dynamic music along side music that isn't.
It's just an imperfect fix. There will always be ways to "game" loudness, and we can't ignore that there may be some benefits to going louder than the recommendations for some music.
I think it's working. It's not working "perfectly". But we can't expect it to. It's still better than what we had, I think!
Hope that makes sense,
Justin
For a video on loudness, sponsored by a limiter plugin, the audio levels are not what I expected them to be. As soon as you hit Play on that DAW, my neighbor's phone called the police by itself. I will watch this later in the week because you give exceptional advice, but please keep your audio normalized. Thank you.
The levels do jump around in this video, but that’s by design.
The idea is to hear what these different target levels sound like, without normalization as well as when level matched.
The first clip is the loudest one. If we matched the dialogue to that one, by the time we got to the quietest one, the voice would be much too loud relative to the music.
Apologies for the jump in the first master but we do give fair warning that it’s coming :-)
Hope that makes sense,
-Justin
@@SonicScoop Understood. Thank you Justin for taking the time to respond.
If you want to understand how LUFS works for experiment, go get an orchestral recording that is really highly dynamic, now go master it at -8LUFS integrated and heavily compress it, then do another one mastered within the ballpark of -14UFS. after, normalize both tracks -14LUFS Integrated. see how quiet is the master in -8LUFS integrated. Just look at the peaks and youll know which one may possibly louder.
Classical music is an example of a genre that doesnt require loudness. Certain music genres are built on loudness because that loudness is a sound has been for the last 50 years. Thats what a volume knob is for.
@@16bitworld2 I was pointing out so that people understand what LUFS integrated is. To exagerate and for them to hear what it really is. These target people are saying of best way to get loudness is not true, because it wont be true everytime. They keep saying do this and that as if they are still peak metering, when its like EQ "Program/Material dependent. That it always have different results based on the program/track at any target. a song more dynamic will have higher Peaks than A squashed one. Hence I pointed out here also that Just go for the sound you want.If that heavily limited sound, then go for it the tone matter than the loudness because you wont get the same results anyway once its normalized. LUFS is not what most people think as if its one target will result the same for everything. Thats why in film this is just our target or at the back of our head, while mixing the final output as we ride those faders, not after the fact. It gets tricky for music. Plus I dont know if Spotify really use the proper ITU R bs 1770 for LUFS. Its wrong to say that -10 LUFS integrated as the target will give you a louder master than -14. Cause again it depends on the program itself. if your sound is squashed already mixing, just dont bother with LUFS.
42:19 I encounter the problem also for Techno. At about -8 LUFS it starts to get risky because of the low frequencies.
It would be interesting for me to see how you would limit a Techno track to -7 LUFS.
Yup, the bassier the track, the harder it is to make it be loud and sound loud without making it sound worse.
A lot of mixes may have more sub energy, low energy or low midrange build up than the references without the mixer knowing it because their system is compromised, AND because it’s hard to listen to a song at an appropriate level of brightness for as long as it takes to mix without fatiguing.
This is probably the case in 70-80% of mixes that come in for mastering, so often, EQ is a big part of getting it loud and clean, like you heard in the first track especially.
Things like using sidechain EQ on your compressors or limiters can help with this too.
That said, you dint necessarily have to “beat” all your references these days. That’s something that streaming services are absolutely good for!
But within reason. If you master a techno track to -14 you’re probably doing it wrong. However if you master it to -5 and it’s sounded way better at -7, you’re probably also doing it wrong :-)
Hope that makes sense!
-Justin
@@SonicScoop Ending up at -5 seems to be impossible since my speakers would explode because of the distortion the low freqs cause.
But yeah, using appropriate EQ and compressing already when mixing is definitely a good foundation for a louder master.
Yeah, you don’t necessarily have to go to -5 to have a great sounding master. Sometimes going louder is counterproductive. There is definitely a point of diminishing returns.
If you’re getting the sound you want at a lower level than you are in good shape!
Though, with the right strategies, it is possible to get cleaner and louder than you might expect. But that might not be necessary.
If you ever wanted to hear where another mastering engineer might take it, you’re always welcome to send me tracks to work on :-)
Have a good one,
Justin
@@SonicScoop Thanks for the offer.
Actually i'm not a mastering engineer, but i mix and master all my productions by myself, and am therefore very interested in all these topics.
@@SonicScoop How much would it cost for a 1 track "try out" master to compare yours to mine ? I also make more "technoish" music (mixed with oldschool trance / industrial I would say)
fucking knew it!! most commercial rap songs tend to even push -7 LUFS. there's no way -14 could be right.
Question: If you're comparing your refs that are say coming in at -9 LUFS, but Spotify, etc is normalizing everything down to -14 LUFS, where are you hearing that louder ref, CD, or ?
You can turn off the volume normalization on services like Spotify and Apple Music. You can also play downloaded WAV or MP3 files in your DAW or music player app. It’s good to level match so you’re not swayed by loudness alone. Hope that helps!
-Justin
@@SonicScoop level matching always 👍
What is in this video will not always be true (but there is some truth in it) because its track dependent. Think of LUFS like EQ, one setting woudnt sound the same for everything. Saying "Master in -10 LUFS" is like saying EQ all your tracks in this same setting. But in general, a song within the target, somehwere there will have Higher Peaks than something that went beyond target as those peaks will be turned down and the one within the the target will be left alone, it doesnt matter if the song sometimes peak at -2dbfs , if its within -14LUFS integrated. now for a song that would generally be the same volume all through out then maybe it wont benefit from LUFS integrated metering. The targets affect only how smashed or how dynamic the track is and it will have different result for each track it wont be consistent and you wont always have the same results. Oh and lastly from what I can remember Spotify isnt yet using ITU R B.s 1170. They are still using replay gain. Part of the reason why majority dstill doesnt understand what really is LUFS integrated metering if they arent working on the film industry. meters vs tone, go with tone.
Loudness is achieved by using the volume knob of your audio system and by using amplification and good speakers.
The main job of mixing and mastering engineers is to make and preserve the music DYNAMIC RANGE!
The reason why live music concerts sounds so good is because of dynamics and good use of amplification systems.
If you want to listen to music on tiny little devices, like smartphones, and you want it loud, then buy good headphones amplifiers and good headphones.
I know this is very subjective and has a lot of 'it depends', but... if you had to chose one bundle, the izotope or fabfilter , which one ?
I habe both and tbh ProQ3 is just the best surgical EQ ever made. And i got L2 to just have more possibilities than in the Ozone Maximizer. But stuff like Ozone Imager 2 and Exciter I also couldn‘t live without while mastering so yea...get both😂
They’re both great. Where they have comparable tools, it’s going to come down to personal preference.
I think the strengths of each are that Fabfilter has the visual interfaces down pat, with super responsive, attractive and fast GUI designs, often with a lower CPU load than iZotope, while iZotope has even more mastering-focused tools, a subscription option and its own standalone apps as well.
iZotope’s Ozone has the imager that FabFilter doesn’t have, and RX has all the noise reduction stuff that doesn’t exist in the Fabfilter world yet. But then again, you can can get the iZotope imager from them for free these days :-)
If you’re going beyond mastering, FabFilter has its own standalone delay, that iZotope doesn’t have yet, as well as dedicated filter plugins.
They both have synths with totally different vibes and iZotope has Vocal Synth and Break Tweaker as well.
If you were to buy EVERYTHING, iZotope has more stuff (minus the dedicated delay) so it’s going to be more expensive if you want every last plugin instead of a smaller bundle. But they both have smaller bundles too, though iZotope has subscription options that FabFilter doesn’t have yet, so its hard to say there as well.
Ultimately, they are both great, and different people will prefer different brands. This is my first time using FabFilter and I’m blown away by how good the GUIs are and really impressed by how great they sound.
I’ve been using iZotope stuff for a decade or more and really love them too, and don’t plan to stop. But I’m DEFINITELY adding these FabFilter tools into the rotation.
As far as features and results there are things I like better about each of their compressors, limiters, EQs and saturators, which are the tools I use every day, so it’s really hard to say! I just can’t give a clear winner for any of those tools. They’re both just some of the best in the business.
Ask me again in a year and I’ll have even more to say I’m sure :-)
Hope that helps!
-Justin
@@SonicScoop thanks for the thoughtful reply,..... to your point, there is something about the izotope gui that just feels heavy and clutter and fabfilter that feels snappy in comparison. i have the Izotope music production suite, and it is good, but i find myself only using certain apps like ozone. i never got used to neutron and just go with ableton stock eq, and imager is great, but somehow the other apps didnt "stick". i also find there is a lot of gimmicky things in izotope.
i will give fabfilter a try, and ..... we know how the movie ends.... will have both :)
I love u
My last Master is -4LUFS I hope I can cure it doctor ?
If it sounds good, it is good.
If it doesn’t, first do no harm. But if needed, operate!
-Justin
It is sad that the goal of mastering music is to make everything sound just as bad as everyone else. Most modern albums are mixed with nowhere near enough dynamic range. The new Kings of Leon album as mastered horribly, and so was the new Foo Fighters album. Listen to either one at a good volume level and you'll have ear fatigue by the end. The streaming services were trying to do the right thing, but the majority of modern recordings are still trying to game the system. And so, to compete with Kings of Leon, most people master their music to remove most of the dynamic range. This is why we can't have nice things.
It’s tricky to say because these things are so subjective. One man’s overcompressed travesty of a record is another man’s badass bombastic impressive beast of a record. (Even after volume normalization.)
But yes, there is definitely a point for any record where additional loudness will just make it sound worse. Fortunately, the streaming services make it so this is no longer necessary.
If record sounds great at -12 LUFS and annoying at -9 LUFS, or if one sounds impressive at -10 but worse at -8, or awesome at -7 but distorted at -6, then there’s no reason to push it to the higher value anymore, just to make it loud.
So streaming services HAVE succeeded at that. I think that’s awesome. People ARE backing off on loudness now. Just not all the way.
But there may still be good reasons to master a rock record to say, -12 or -10 or -9 instead of -14 in going for a sound you actually love.
If the artist actually LIKES a more limited sound, even when level matched, there may be reason to go louder than that. But if they’re pushing it just for loudness alone, it’s a mistake. I agree.
But whatever they choose, it’s almost inevitable that at least SOME of their fans will disagree :-) So there’s always that!
I hope that makes sense.
-Justin
@@SonicScoop It does make sense. What sounds good is subjective. We're trained listeners to think that an over-compressed crappy mix is "bombastic." The vast majority of people don't listen to music on a good system. Often these days, people are listening on a mono bluetooth speaker. The horrors of it all! Maybe good mixing will have a small comeback the same way vinyl did. At least the streaming services are trying to help.
Who are you to tell an artist how they should make their own art? If kings of leon wanted their album at -7, thats their artistic choice. If you disagree, then you go make your own album and make it as quiet and as dynamic as you want.
Listen up musicians. See where the levels are?
i heard they used this actual unit on sandstorm by Darude
Leave some dynamic range, Ive made the mistake too many times
Absolutely. But how much is enough and how much is too much? And how can you get things to sound louder while staying dynamic? We go deep on some of that here. Loudness isn’t only about limiting. It’s about EQ balance and other factors as well. Hope it’s helpful!
Squash it, smash it, compress it until there is no dynamics and the song is one big power chord. That's what I'm talking about. Then when you hear it on steam it's sounds like underwater screaming. Yay!
Maybe you could increase the volume of your speech on these videos, so that our ears arent bleeding when you play the music.
Haha, yes, the levels do jump around in this video, but that’s by design.
The idea is to hear what these different target levels sound like, without normalization as well as when level matched.
The first clip is the loudest one. If we marched the dialogue to that one, by the time we got to the quietest one, the voice would be much too loud relative to the music.
Apologies for the jump in the first master but we do give fair warning that it’s coming :-)
Hope that makes sense,
-Justin
My take away is that EDM is shit music that will be left in the dumpster of bad trends.
imho EDM is great for various purposes, but it lacks a human connection because lyrics are minimal or non-existant, so it's kind of like watching a movie without a protagonist.