How loud should you master music? (2023)

I attempt the impossible and try settle the age old question "How loud should you master music?".
Follow me on IG: josh.bartel
Featured tracks! Thanks to everyone who let me use them in the video.
Lamphead: Your Yesterday
Hayden Moon: You and I
Cormac Grant: Espresso

[@pocket1684]

You are so right. Ears are the best thing. For everyone who says mix at --14 lufs,. I did this and found that they didn't translate near as well when loaded online. Depending on the style, I'm more like between -10 and -8 at the loudest, some electronic going to -7 w/0 losing quality.

[@Abos_Studio]

Makes sense

[@tucko11]

Some masters come out louder regardless. It’s due to the composition, song writing , and recording and tracking . That affects the mix , and the master , greatly .

[@EricSauerets]

Josh your channel is teaching me a ton! How would you go about picking reference tracks for a song that's being produced in 2023, but is maybe in the style/genre of older music produced in the 60s/70s? Would you use era appropriate music as your reference, or more modern tracks that may have been mastered for the competitive streaming market?

[@eli-shulga]

Im new at the scene, so don't really get the great "loudness wars" or this "-14 must LUFS" thing :/ I try to master to a reference.. Trying to use/train my ears to hear the subtle frequency differences, while doing so. That last part is where the years on years of experience means the most. But why is there such a debate around this? Am I missing something?

[@isaacandrews5330]

Just nerds arguing mate lmao.

[@Josh.Bartel]

It's because music is subjective and everyone has different tastes. There truely isn't one correct answer. It's like saying blue is the best colour. With that being said, as a mastering engineer I have to take into account the majority of consumers listeners preferences as well. Which is pretty much why I recommend to use great sounding, successful tracks as the core of your references.

[@Josh.Bartel]

haha in a nutshell, absolutely

[@eli-shulga]

@@Josh.Bartel Thanks thats was thinking. Getting the target LUFS is easy, just get a good reference similar to what you want to achieve and aim for the same values. Getting your mix to those values as clean as possible is the real challenge. Yea guess Im just late to the party so this -14 thing kinda disappeared when I got on board.

[@AdamEzraOfficial]

Master to -9 RMS. That's what the professional engineers do.

[@Josh.Bartel]

Blanket statements like that do not work for every mix and genre

[@AdamEzraOfficial]

You get any top 50 original master, I can guarantee you they are around -6 LUFS & -8 to 10 RMS. You can actually do this by turning if the Spotify normalize in the settings and reference these original masters and use a multimeter to see how loud they actually are.

[@jacksmith4460]

Im ending the Loudness debate.......by realisng its a subjective thing and ...not ending the debate at all LMAO

[@Josh.Bartel]

You get it haha

[@pocket1684]

So true. I've been averaging -8 for peaks w/o any issues.

[@davidkolos5478]

Who is really right about this? Online Platform Engineer or Sound Engineer? Does the Sound engineer have to object to what has been prepared by the Online Platform engineer. Just follow the -14lufs. If your audio doesn't sound loud, it means you're mixing it wrong. Nowadays we have to compete who produces a loud sound but in the range of -14lufs.

[@Josh.Bartel]

Streaming services don't recommend -14LUFS btw. That's just their normalisation level. They recommend master the music to a loudness that musically sounds best, like I described in the video.