How Loud Should You Master For Spotify

Learn the correct target volume, dynamic range, true peak and more for your particular song and genre when mastering for Spotify and other streaming platforms such as Apple Music, Amazon, Pandora, Tidal, Deezer etc.
Spotify plays it's music at -14LUFS but that doesn't mean you should master your music at exactly that number. There are other things to consider. The most important of which is your dynamic range.
Here's a link to the metering plugin I use in the video youlean.co/youlean-loudness-m...
and to the Loudness Penalty Analyzer web page www.loudnesspenalty.com/
For more training on Music Production, Mixdown, Mastering, Finishing Songs Fast etc check out my site www.basskleph.com
00:00 - Intro
01:03 - Volume Matched Mastering Explained
02:42 - DAW Examples of Limiting and Levels
07:24 - True Peak target explained
08:30 - DAW example making True Peak setting
09:23 - Hack to be louder on Spotify
10:42 - DAW examples of louder Spotify hack
14:25 - Outro

[@chrisbennie]

Awesome tips, especially the hack related to dynamic range. I set all my Beatport or Bandcamp reference tracks to -9 and work towards that. Some of those results go straight to release, while others get lowered to -6db on the master for mastering by the label. Id be super interested to know what I can do to get my own mixes louder though and any other insightful tips for improving sound quality. Your road to main stage, particularly the mixing section helped improve my music 200% so much so I often get complimented on it or asked who I master with! So eternally greatful for your tutelage there 🙏

[@basskleph]

Thanks Chris! Glad to hear you got great results from The Road To Main Stage! 😃 Ok, sure thing. I'll do a video about ultra loud masters, and more about sound quality and clarity in general too. Keep up the great work! 🙌🏻

[@iamdjkirk]

coming back to watch again, just straight gold here! thanks Stu!

[@RichRobinson]

Great content, no fluff, concise and to the point. Thanks mate, great stuff and very much appreciate. Like button “smashed”.

[@musicmanray1]

love that you started with the goods then went into details.. much respect!!!!

[@basskleph]

Thanks! Yeah, I hate having to wait a long time in a video to get to the main point

[@djmono2641]

Yeah I’ve been trying out 10 and see what it sounds like thanks for the vid dude 👍

[@tehpeasant]

Making several masters is usually not feasible, when you are using a service like CDBaby you can only submit one file per song for all services, doesn't matter if it's for streaming or download. I'm saying this because I understand that mastering too loud can be bad for something like Spotify, but I'm currently making a Metal production and the reference material has -5 LUFS (yes -5, which is very far from -14). So I'm a bit at a loss here.

[@Kreycea]

very helpful mate! Thank you

[@wegnostyk60]

Thank u very much. I was so worried if a song of mine was going beyond -14 only for a second while having quite huge dynamics range. I finally see that's not the case.

[@Noisa]

Dude, this is great and concise. So much confusion around these topics, and you hit the nail on the head. I always go to -2.1 for true peak even though others have said you only need to reduce to -2. Always confused me since the conversion peaks it out anyway. Thanks for the great vid. 👍🏼

[@basskleph]

Thanks! Glad I could help! 🙂 I noticed a lot of people were giving bad advice so I thought I should share my opinion

[@ryde2012]

Wow will try this

[@iammonchu]

Bro you help me so much ❤️‍🔥✨

[@iamdjkirk]

Amazing stuff!

[@basskleph]

Thanks Kirk! Glad you liked it 🙂

[@classicvinylsounds5424]

Thank you for the info. Have you made a video on ideal levels when mastering a track for club play/large sound system?

[@basskleph]

no but it would be the same. It's all about the dynamic range. The volume doesn't matter as the DJ will just turn it up or down with the gain knob. What matters more is how much glue and punch you have.

[@mburton1972]

Thanks, Stu! Loved this!! I would definitely love an ultra-loud mastering video - I am soon going to be sending out some songs to labels - I am getting pretty loud, but I am sure you have amazing tips. (I saw the reply to Christopher, but haven't been able to find it using Google). Cheers mate!

[@basskleph]

Thanks! I’ll need to make a video to explain it properly, but here’s some quick tips for super loud mixes. #1 - the sounds you choose at the start and what notes they play (and when) have a huge impact. Not every song can be super loud. It’s what you have in it that decides that. #2 - volume balance of your parts matters a lot. #3 - The ratio of low frequencies to mids & highs plays a big roll. Eg You often need less bass and more mids/highs to master super loud.

[@mburton1972]

@@basskleph thanks man! Appreciate your advice - it comes at a perfect time. I’m going to start a mix down. I’ll apply those tricks and then see how the master turns out. Cheers!

[@AP0110Music]

I wish there was a a plug-in that would playback exactly how your song will sound already uploaded. Your video is as clear about subject as can be yet its still confusing to the average bedroom producer just wanting to share track on streaming sites.

[@djmono2641]

Love to know what are your thoughts on loudness for cd or radio ? Is it the same as online sites ? Thanks for your vids dude and thanks for having a listen to my tracks means a lot to me 👍

[@basskleph]

Welcome! For CD you can go louder if you really want as there is the benefit of no volume matching. However, going louder will reduce your dynamic range more and reduce your punch and clarity. For radio it can sometimes be good to go less. similar to the Spotify settings. This is because radio uses their own multiband limiting for broadcast and this tends to get better results when your master is not pushed too hard. So in general, unless you really really need your song “loud”, then these Spotify settings are pretty good for most use cases

[@nathanbaigent7055]

I’m using ozone 9 elements you can master for streaming or cd with it so I use flac for streaming sites and mp3 for cd loudness and wav to bounce it into my daw hope that helps 👍

[@basskleph]

Nice one. What dynamic range do you usually master at?

[@nathanbaigent7055]

@@basskleph about 8 for cd quality and about 10 for streaming but go with what sounds good to you really there’s no wrong or right just check how much will get turned down by 😊

[@basskleph]

sounds like a good range. Good stuff!

[@nathanbaigent7055]

@@basskleph well if you push to far just sounds wrong I push it till it just starts limiting like they say there’s always a volume 😂

[@Ouvii]

9:55 pretty sure lots of pop music takes advantage of this where the verses are basically inaudible and the choruses are just really loud.

[@Noisa]

Curious, you mention avg dynamics but seem to be referring to real time dynamics. My tracks usually hit around 8-9lu for average, but get as low as 5lu for real-time, and upon checking, a lot of songs do the same. Do you care more about average? Might have answered my own question, but figured I’d inquire. Thanks

[@basskleph]

Hey, I measure average dynamics while looping a section in the drop (or loudest part). This would be similar to the real-time yes. Slightly more accurate maybe. If you measure the whole song in average then the average will be lower as it is also measuring the breakdowns. 5LU in the drop would be what I consider too squashed for Spotify. However some people still do this on beatport for the reasons explained in the video. Some people also do it because they don’t know any better ;) Even big name artists

[@niccster1061]

"That can actually make your song louder". Im only a minute in but are you suggesting we start the loudness wars again?

[@florianarndt]

All these tips are great…but the whole thing only works when loudness normalization is active by default and cant be switched off by the consumer.

[@basskleph]

Yes, you're right. However there is also a lesson to be learned here that louder is not always better. Dynamic range is important. Even if it's possible to disable volume matching on certain music platforms, i don't think many people would choose to do that. Then you would have to be constantly correcting your listening level with the volume control. Now there are some platforms and scenarios where there is currently no volume matching e.g. BeatPort, Pioneer CDJs, etc. but I wouldn't be surprised if they implement that soon. So we are preparing for the future here. The loudness war is finally approaching the end.

[@MrSupersia]

Would you change the levels for Radio play or keep it same

[@basskleph]

I would say the same as this or possibly even more gentle as radio adds their own mastering to everything

[@MrSupersia]

@@basskleph yeah true so leave room for them to do that

[@pablogonnet6024]

1:40 that should make all tracks the same loudness and they're certainly not. I've just uploaded my band's first record mastered at -11 ish and it sounds really quiet compared with other bands in the similar genre. Why is this?? Is volume matching a scam? Do they use momentary, short term or integrated measuring to compare to the -14 standard?

[@basskleph]

It could be due to the perceived loudness in your mixdown. Maybe you have a lot of bass but not enough mid range presence etc. it could also be the choice of instruments and elements in the song. But yes Spotify does do auto volume matching. Unless you somehow disabled it. Check in your settings that it’s still working. They measure it by scanning the whole song with integrated LUFS

[@pablogonnet6024]

@@basskleph Thanks! Actually I discovered that it didn't happen in the mobile app (it had volume matching enabled). So the online version might not even have that option

[@weimingchew_]

How much limited level is better?

[@basskleph]

Hi Wei, it depends how loud your song is without limiting. So it is not possible to simply say “you need X decibels of limiting”. However, what you can do is measure your output volume and dynamic range. Then you limit until you science your desired LUFS volume and LU dynamic range. That is what I describe in the video

[@captainb6107]

I have NEVER been turned up on spotify ???? What gives ?

[@dimoscondos]

sorry to say this, but YOU compressing and limiting your song has nothing to do with an already set and forget algorithm in an online streaming service.. 😉 that's my 2 cents, process what i've written above, and figure it out

[@basskleph]

Hey there. Actually, yes it does. The Spotify volume matching algorithm measures the volume of your song, and then rebalances it to the standard -14 LUFS level. So if you heavily limit your song and make it louder, Spotify will turn it back down to -14LUFS. You will have gained no additional volume but you will now have a reduced dynamic range due to the heavy limiting. This is what I am trying to explain in the video. When it comes to volume matched streaming services, our final song volume doesn't really matter so much anymore. What matters more is our choice of dynamic range.