Ditto VS Landr

[forumuser828520]

Hello !

Maybe its to soon to talk about SOS Artist plan, but what you think is best
to music distribuition ?

Ditto claims "Pitch for TV & movie sync features" while Landr doesnt seem to have that feature.

[Drew Stephenson]

Not used LANDR but I use Ditto as my distributor. I think they're pretty good value for money but they're not particularly quick. Need to give them plenty of lead in time if you want to take advantage of Spotify's pitching process for example.
The 'Pitch for TV & Movie sync features' is a paid extra for Ditto though, not part of the standard package.

[amanise]

When's too early? I got on the SOS For Artists plan the other day and thought I'd test out the LANDR mastering plug. It smashed me right up to 0.2 dBfs peak and -9.6 iLUFS despite my desperate arm wrestling with the loudness control to get it down Nearly blew my own head off - but it sounded pretty nice and full. I should add that all the control wrestling I could manage only got it down to nearly -13 iLUFS. Still blimmin loud.

It's made me wonder what's best now. I'm used to targeting -1 dBfs peak and -14 iLUFS for the likes of Spotify et al (as a sort of compromise for all of them). Suddenly that's all out the window and its pumped way the heck up there by AI. Also - I now see there's a Spotify target loudness of -9 iLUFS called "Spotify Loud". I wonder if that's for bangin EDM only.

I wonder what's going to happen when everyone starts submitting the AI pumped versions of everything to the streamers? I know I don't have to let it do that - I could just say no and keep my own levels as they always have been. But it's very tempting to 'go loud' and blame it on AI.

[Drew Stephenson]

Spotify Loud is a user-controlled setting that basically just raises the loudness limit in the app so that songs that have been mastered louder can actually be louder. However I'd be pretty amazed if many people are using it, I suspect most users never touch the loudness controls because, fundamentally, it makes the user experience less easy as you'll be constantly raising and lowering the volume.

As usual it comes down to mastering according to what the song needs and using the numbers not as a target, but to understand what will happen to your track when uploaded.

[Matt Houghton]

Spotify Loud is a user-controlled setting that basically just raises the loudness limit in the app so that songs that have been mastered louder can actually be louder.

I may well not be up to speed on this — I last looked into it when interviewing Ian Shepherd a few years ago — but IIRC the keys thing to note about Loud Mode in Spotify are (a) it's the only mode that uses a limiter to raise the level of tracks; and (b) hardly any users actually switch it on. Really, it's intended for use in loud environments (think building sites etc).

[Drew Stephenson]

Ah, I thought I'd read that they weren't doing the 'raising' bit but it would make more sense if they did (from a user perspective) - though presumably that will also require some hefty limiting being applied.
I'll have to go dig around again.

[amanise]

Ah! I understand more now. I can definitely relate to the building site scenario!

Spent the last couple of hours wrestling with the plug and I understand it's interactions with Reaper better now. Good exercise actually. Opened the chain with TDR Nova for the heck of it, fed that into LANDR Mastering in open mode and plonked SCAN on the end of it in slow mode.

Would you believe it - the key to getting your peak levels down is cheat and yank down the master bus fader on its way out of Reaper Got a nice peak limited -1 dBfs peak and bang on -14 iLUFS in the end.

Must be well weird trying to control the online version though.

[Matt Houghton]

I definitely preferred using the LANDR plug-in to the online version.

Btw, on the subject of loudness, another nugget that I took from that Ian Shepherd interview was the notion that LUFS-I isn't necessarily a great indicator of how loud a music track is... which in turn makes it not a great thing to use as a 'target'. I mean it does give you an average loudness for the whole thing, yes. But Ian suggested it was probably more important to consider how loud the loudest part of the track is, not the average for the whole thing. And I kinda buy that argument. If you're interested in that side of things, you can check out the article here.

[amanise]

I definitely preferred using the LANDR plug-in to the online version.

... If you're interested in that side of things, you can check out the article here.

Thanks Matt, I need to revise all that clearly! But generally, I like -14 iLUFS as it seems to suit the material I end up with - which is fortunate. I have gone for louder in the past but it feels artificial to me somehow. Thanks for the link!

[James Perrett]

Would you believe it - the key to getting your peak levels down is cheat and yank down the master bus fader on its way out of Reaper Got a nice peak limited -1 dBfs peak and bang on -14 iLUFS in the end.

Or use ReaLimit with the ceiling set to -1dB and level adjusted to give you the level you want.

[amanise]

Would you believe it - the key to getting your peak levels down is cheat and yank down the master bus fader on its way out of Reaper Got a nice peak limited -1 dBfs peak and bang on -14 iLUFS in the end.

Or use ReaLimit with the ceiling set to -1dB and level adjusted to give you the level you want.

Might try that tomorrow James - Ta.

[Ken P]

In terms of distribution, rather than mastering, I'm in the process of moving all of my releases to LANDR, including a couple with Ditto. I chose LANDR because they make the process of importing a release straightforward (ish) and they say they're a Spotify premium partner and offer quick support on the Pro plan.

[kisra 56]

I use Ditto and I like the pitch sync option, although I haven't had any concrete feedback yet.
Landr is more oriented mastering I think, so it all depends on your priorities.