LUF loudness for spotify and youtube

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Re: LUF loudness for spotify and youtube

Post by alexhedleymusic »

The Elf wrote:
alexhedleymusic wrote:This is my first time mixing a track. This is the start!

All the more reason to grasp all these things right now - it will stand you in good stead! :thumbup:

yes this is true.... but im still a bit confused as it says on the loudness metre
m,s,i. (medium, short term, integrated)?

so you say to read the lufs to -14 but theres three things to look at so how do you read the lufs when theres three different readings?

Thanks
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Re: LUF loudness for spotify and youtube

Post by Kwackman »

alexhedleymusic wrote:but im still a bit confused as it says on the loudness metre
m,s,i. (medium, short term, integrated)?


alexhedleymusic wrote:also i did look through the article sent by Kwackman(thanks for that) but it did go over my head slightly and i got a bit confused with it
thanks!

Yeah, it requires a lot of cups of coffee to get through, but an excellent article.
I read it about once a year!

If you scroll near the bottom there's a "box" with the title "Typical Loudness Meter Displays", which might help you?
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Re: LUF loudness for spotify and youtube

Post by Wonks »

You're aiming for an integrated loudness of -14LUFS, which should tell you that you need to use the integrated value. This value needs to be for the whole track, so you can't just look at the integrated value for a short section, you need to run the track from start to finish and look at the result.
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Re: LUF loudness for spotify and youtube

Post by Drew Stephenson »

They're measuring the same thing but over different time periods.
If I recall correctly:
M = momentary, fractions of a second.
S = short-term, a few seconds.
I = integrated, the whole piece.

It's the integrated one that the streaming services are interested in.
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Re: LUF loudness for spotify and youtube

Post by Hugh Robjohns »

alexhedleymusic wrote:...but im still a bit confused as it says on the loudness metre
m,s,i. (medium, short term, integrated)?

Try reading the article that Kwackman linked above.

There are three different measurements options involved in loudness normalisation, but the only one that matters for streaming services is the Integrated measurement and that has to be calculated across the entire track, from start to end. It will generate bogus numbers if you only analyse a part of your track.

The Medium option works much like a VU meter and is intended to help find an initial level in the right ball park when you start a mix. The Short term option measures over a (roughly) 4 second rolling time window and is used primarily for assessing very short tracks (under 30 seconds) mostly in TV advertising.

so you say to read the lufs to -14 but theres three things to look at so how do you read the lufs when theres three different readings?

Ignore M and S, just worry about I, and only worry about it at the end of your track, not during!

And while the absolute limit for True Peak is -1dBTP, it's often better to keep it closer to -3dBTP as that avoids problems when the material passes through lossy codecs (MP3, AAC etc) which many streaming services are using.
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Re: LUF loudness for spotify and youtube

Post by alexhedleymusic »

Wonks wrote:You're aiming for an integrated loudness of -14LUFS, which should tell you that you need to use the integrated value. This value needs to be for the whole track, so you can't just look at the integrated value for a short section, you need to run the track from start to finish and look at the result.

ok cool sorry to keep banging on about this but should i just make one master to send to all streaming and aim for these levels and it should be ok still?
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Re: LUF loudness for spotify and youtube

Post by alexhedleymusic »

blinddrew wrote:They're measuring the same thing but over different time periods.
If I recall correctly:
M = momentary, fractions of a second.
S = short-term, a few seconds.
I = integrated, the whole piece.

It's the integrated one that the streaming services are interested in.

Thanks for this!
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Re: LUF loudness for spotify and youtube

Post by alexhedleymusic »

Hugh Robjohns wrote:
alexhedleymusic wrote:...but im still a bit confused as it says on the loudness metre
m,s,i. (medium, short term, integrated)?

Try reading the article that Kwackman linked above.

There are three different measurements options involved in loudness normalisation, but the only one that matters for streaming services is the Integrated measurement and that has to be calculated across the entire track, from start to end. It will generate bogus numbers if you only analyse a part of your track.

The Medium option works much like a VU meter and is intended to help find an initial level in the right ball park when you start a mix. The Short term option measures over a (roughly) 4 second rolling time window and is used primarily for assessing very short tracks (under 30 seconds) mostly in TV advertising.

so you say to read the lufs to -14 but theres three things to look at so how do you read the lufs when theres three different readings?

Ignore M and S, just worry about I, and only worry about it at the end of your track, not during!

And while the absolute limit for True Peak is -1dBTP, it's often better to keep it closer to -3dBTP as that avoids problems when the material passes through lossy codecs (MP3, AAC etc) which many streaming services are using.

Thanks this has helped a lot appreciate it! also i just have one other question and thought i might as well ask you as you seem to know what youre saying rather than start a whole new thread. the correlation metre on my track is fine for the majority of the track but when it goes into little instrumental sections it goes slightly over in to the red but only kind of jumps into it quickly and then goes back into the green. would you say this is a major issue. iv'e checked the song in mono and it does sound worse but thats probably to be expected to some extent... still sounds pretty ok to me though. also i can correct this issue on the correlation metre by changing the panning of the guitars but it makes the sound of the track a lot worse to me and just much less wide which is not whats wanted. shouldnt matter if it dips into the red every now and then though should it? as long as its not like sitting there for periods of time
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Re: LUF loudness for spotify and youtube

Post by RichardT »

alexhedleymusic wrote:
Wonks wrote:You're aiming for an integrated loudness of -14LUFS, which should tell you that you need to use the integrated value. This value needs to be for the whole track, so you can't just look at the integrated value for a short section, you need to run the track from start to finish and look at the result.

ok cool sorry to keep banging on about this but should i just make one master to send to all streaming and aim for these levels and it should be ok still?

I always create one master for all streaming services. I don't think it's worth creating different ones - not only that but it would create a lot of complication when you distribute your music.
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Re: LUF loudness for spotify and youtube

Post by alexhedleymusic »

RichardT wrote:
alexhedleymusic wrote:
Wonks wrote:You're aiming for an integrated loudness of -14LUFS, which should tell you that you need to use the integrated value. This value needs to be for the whole track, so you can't just look at the integrated value for a short section, you need to run the track from start to finish and look at the result.

ok cool sorry to keep banging on about this but should i just make one master to send to all streaming and aim for these levels and it should be ok still?

I always create one master for all streaming services. I don't think it's worth creating different ones - not only that but it would create a lot of complication when you distribute your music.

yeah this was my thinking. would get very confusing... cheers!
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Re: LUF loudness for spotify and youtube

Post by Drew Stephenson »

Likewise. There's not that much difference between them, lots of them don't use a simple LUFS measure anyway (they have their own proprietary algorithm and suggest a LUFS number to approximate to it), and generally life's too short!
Concentrate on getting a good mix and check you're in the ball-park at the end of it. :)
There's also the Loudness Penalty website where you can 'check your homework' by uploading a copy and hearing exactly what will happen to it. Worth adding to your favourites whilst you're getting your head round things.
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Re: LUF loudness for spotify and youtube

Post by The Elf »

Spotify
Max Integrated: –14 LUFS
Max True Peak: -1dB

Spotify Loud
Max Integrated: –11 LUFS
Max True Peak: -2dB

YouTube
Max Integrated: –14 LUFS
Max True Peak: -1dB

Apple Music
Max Integrated: –16 (±1) LUFS
Max True Peak: -1dB

Apple Podcast
Max Integrated: –16 (±1) LUFS
Max True Peak: -1dB

TIDAL
Max Integrated: –14 LUFS
Max True Peak: -1dB

Amazon Music
Max Integrated: –14 LUFS
Max True Peak: -2dB

Amazon Alexa
Max Integrated: –14 LUFS
Max True Peak: -2dB

AES Streaming
Min Integrated: -20 LUFS
Max Integrated: –16 LUFS
Max True Peak: -1dB
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