This is really just a guy talking nonsense for 13min, accusing others of spreading misinformation while he himself is clearly a beginner? You know you can chech how many db a video is being normalised on yt by checking the stats for nerds. Each time I listen to even a popular song and it sits at something like 6db, that's 6db of extra loudness the song could have had. There are other ways to archive perceived loudness than a limiter hit. Mainly, actually making good music that will make the listener wanna turn it up.

Jesus, this video is horrible

Great info here, yeah -14 is a joke. By the way they removed that report from the web..hmmm wonder why?

Ya know? This does makes sense. Some of my songs I've mastered ended up having -14 LUFS be too quiet compared to reference tracks or listening to music in car stereos. The -7 and -8 area does a nice trim on the peak transients when maximizing.

You confound LUFS with peak to loudness ratio

Well, I still don't fully understand your point. Let's say you are making a YT video. Is there any harm in doing -14? THIS video was normalized by YT with -7 dB (according to the "stats for nerds" button). Is there a difference between going for -14 or going for -7 and getting an extra -7 while YT processing the video?

Actually as a producer, I say each genre has its own perfect LUFS level and that's why you are adviced to use reference tracks when mastering so that you can match the LUFs range of the genre

So can i set the limiter to make my song play at -10db long term without spotify lowering the volume of it?

If you want to see youtube's volume reduction in action choose 'stats for nerds' and in the stats you'll the number of decibels they have reduced the volume by. 100% represents whatever LUFS they're targetting (-14db currenty) and the other percentage is how much of that 100% the tracks is 'allowed' due to its integrated LUFs value. The db amount is how much they have reduced the volume by to meet their target. E.g. Dua Lipa had something like 67% and a gain reduction of around 5db. I think what this means is that all tracks will hit an integrated value in line with the streaming platforms target but the 'sound' of a -8db master will be retained - i.e. heavily limitted and limited dynamics. It'll just be quiter than an unnormalised version of the track. I'm yet to decide whether I should back off the LUF's though as that heavily compressed and limited sound still has its place in certain genres. You might not want to have lots of dynamic range in a dubstep track for instance. But I do think you have to accept that your -8db integrated LUFS track will have its volume reduced. Measuring the loudest part of a track and then subtracting peak value (which I've never seen used as a calculation) is not showing what integrated LUFS are on a track. I suspect you'd get something much closer to -14db if you played the whole track and didn't do the peak calculation. FWIW I read an interesting article that said master to -10db short term LUFS for the loudest sections of your mix - balancing everything musically against this and although you'll sacrifice a bit of volume it will keep it competitively loud. Will be trying that and interested to see if youtube takes less than the 5db off my current upload!

Super interesting. My background is in radio - a few things I wanted to mention - radio stations (in US) typically request production to -6db, or at least they did during the decades in your chart which were the years I was in radio. Then the stations would have a compressor to even things out. Also worth a mention is radio stations (and TV too) intentionally play the commercial material louder - they do it on purpose, as obnoxious as that is. This is not always true, but usually. Now I'm producing to Spotify and learning all about LUFS for the first time in my live, even though I spent 25 years producing for radio! I think we've reached the limit, where sound quality will just suffer if people keep pushing it. I do have a question still - wondering about if Spotify "normalizes" things, in other words, if you're citing the LUFS for some top hits, do they play at that level on Spotify without Spotify "changing" the volumes? I ask because sometimes I hear Spotify changes the volume after you upload your song if it needs volume adjustment, and here you're suggesting when I listen to Spotify I'll hear a big hit and it will be playing on Spotify louder, without any "adjustment." Also I thought of one more question! If I am producing a soft, dynamic song, soft folk or even classical with a lot of quiet parts, should I allow for a quite low LUFS-I reading, -20 or something low like that? Thanks! Thanks for the video!

Terrific!!!

IMO todays chart music is still too loud. but that doesn't really matter because it's mostly unlistenable anyway ... 😎

Thank you sir. But now the big question is what will happen if we upload a song with -8dB LUFS in youtube ? Will youtube brickwall limit it to -14db LUFS and make it sound super crashed ? Or will it decrease the loudness of the whole track preserving the dynamics ? That is what i wanted to know.

-14 is just for youtube "KZfaq. KZfaq uses a reference level of -14 LUFS, and normalization is always enabled. It will not turn quieter songs up, never uses limiting, and uses track normalization exclusively."

Thank you very much for pointing out the rubbish advice by the top result. This is a deliberate scheme to trick the majority into producing unsuccessful work, thus keeping control in the hands of the secret holders.

Thankyou!!! Gold advice. Remastering at around 8ish now.

everyone in the comments is malding. stay mad and keep mixing to -14 so my songs will be louder than yours and keep living in dreamland losers

fx sounds are too high! great video and content tho

When someone listen to your -14db lufs song without volume equalization it's going to be a lot quieter than pro records. The loudness is in the mix. When you get better at balancing your mix you notice that it's easy to get etc -7db lufa loudness. This has been the biggest struggle for me personally for so long.

This is the most controversial upload in KZfaqs history.

Wow, I actually just left Sage Audio’s membership because the mastering sucked and the songs’ levels were inconsistent 😅

Thanks, brother, best video about LUFS and loudness😄🤙⚡️☀️🌟

nice one here. i agree and my magic number is and has been -9-ish, what i would say is - if you cut the subs off, you would probably measure the master at -14LUFS instead of -8LUFS

I make bass music i should still probably go pretty low like -14 -18 right? its a pretty noisy genre

I get my transients fixed up and go -18 luf with ozone 11 and it sounds really good to me I'll have to try this

FYI: There are delievery standards e.g. the R128 broadcast standard ‘Loudness normalisation and permitted maximum level of audio signals’ by EBU is defined at -23 LUFS (+/- 0,5 LU) published November 2023.

how to monitor directly from streaming service to DAW plugin??

if its not from Spotify it will be higher, of course. No?

SUPER AWESOME TUT VID!!!! -9 is my sweet spot 😂❤

Bro! Independent artists been getting wrecked by following - 14db LUFS rules...

Isn't it extremely genre-dependant? For pop song or metal i understand why you want LOUD mix. But did you ever try to just normalize ambient drone for example? Usually it would be horrendous, and if you slap compression other than glue on track like that it would ususualy force you to rearrange whole thing. Considering it's by definition soft expierience, it's probably not worth it. Another example is "empty" instrumental music, like solo piano compositions... do you REALY need -6 lufs there? Another thing about aiming at high loundness is compression ability to change character of your orininal sound. And you can't avoid ALOT of compression if you targeting -6, sometimes it can change character of the song significant enouth for it cease to be original artwork. And from my perspective it goes against core purpouse of mixing and mastering - present original art in best form possible.

Who is here 2024 🔥🔥🔥?

yes!

What about LUFS levels when submitting a song for distribution via a distributor such as CDBaby andDistrokid?

I think most people in the comments summed up the issues I have with this video, but I might also add that even the title is savagely misleading. Mastering to -14dB isn't "wrong," you just believe it's not something people have-to/should do (unless you're just being that "edgy" guy who defies the standard, despite the illogicality of your case.) And no talk of genre specifics? Come on. You know better than to make coverall statements about not just loudness, but anything that has to do with audio production-or you should. Seriously? Don't be one more person who further lowers the YT audio production tutorial bar. Do better.

That's it, the facts

Ok, you're correct, but dude: you can't play a song for 1-2 seconds and get a proper LUFS reading. When we're talking about mastering a track, we're talking about ILUFS (integrated LUFS) which is an average of the entire song. What you're getting a reading of is MLUFS (momentary LUFS). Not really useful.

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

You got your mouth full of Truth!

I mix afrobeat. Which tends to be mastered around -10 I-LUF. When I compared the same song mastered at - 14 and matched the louder one to negative -14, I did end up with with louder peaks on the one mastered at -14, as expected and they sounded virtually the same. My only frustration is that I'm not entirely sure Spotify really lowers louder tracks the way they say they do. But I will say this, obviously with my results, it's better to master to -14, assuming Spotify does what they say they do. And mixing to -14 while simultaneously trying to get your peaks between - 1 and - 2dB takes real skill. And it does force you to better balance your mix and clean it up. I just wish we knew for sure what Spotify was doing.

man thank you for that i always thought about that because you could tell there are a lots of song louder than other

I'm new to mix and mastering, as a movie composer. I'm surprised by this video and take good note of it ! I'm also surprised by some comments which confuse me. You clearly show the LUFS from an analyses website and complete with a quick mesure in Logic so I don't understand why they argue that some additional maths is needed ! You know what, I will trust nobody and do the same as you did but with a measuring of an entire piece of movie music. Thanks !

“If the pros do it, we gonna go it” bear in mind the “pros” got us into the loudness wars to begin with. It was the pros that ruined music by squashing the dynamic range over the decades.

Songs chart because people like them, not because they're louder than every other song. Mix and master to -14 Integrated LUFS for streaming and stop destroying the dynamics of your music just to do what the "pros" are doing.

why does distrokid distort my song when I upload it? As soon as I listen to the preview its distorted and I didnt use their loudness normilazation button.

Hey David I thought you stopped making video. I typed your name online and I'm glad to see this.

I find this Video very strange. You might be right about that all (or some) Pros master to arond -8, I dont know but what has that to do with the other facts in your Video, that KZfaq and so on nilormalize to -14? (this is not universal btw, other platforms like Netflix for example normalize to other lufs) .I dont see the problem here. But you should whatch your language. ranting like this is not a good method to prove your point anyway.

U are talking almost as much bs as the people u criticise. I mean generally ur right, but u say AIM for -8 Int which is horrible advice. First of all aiming for -8 short term is better general advice, secondly it depends on the music and where its loudness sweetspot sits

KZfaq doesn't gain up when you're under -14 LUFS, it only brings levels down once they pass the threshold of -1 dBTP and -14 LUFS

Thank you for the enlightenment 🎉