Why Do My Mixes Sound Bad on Spotify, iTunes, YouTube or Social Media? (Mastering Tips)

Today's video is answering a commonly asked question... "Why does my music sound bad when I upload it to streaming services?". I hope you find these tips useful and can apply them to your own music.
Wassup legends - 0:00
Discussing a commonly asked question - 00:34
What is encoding? - 1:10
Encoding example - 2:05
Tip #1 Preview your track through streaming encoders - 2:34
Tip #2 Consider how much your track might be normalized - 3:57
Tip #3 Achieving perceived loudness - 7:40
Thank you - 9:46
This video is not sponsored and I am not endorsed by any of the products I mention.
Featured track 'Day Trip' by Lamphead
open.spotify.com/track/7c8u7f...
iTunes Mastering Guidelines
www.apple.com/itunes/docs/app...
Spotify Loudness Guidelines
artists.spotify.com/help/arti...
Nugen Master Check
nugenaudio.com/mastercheck/
ADPTR Streamliner
www.plugin-alliance.com/en/pr...
AURoundTripAAC
www.apple.com/itunes/mastered...
Loudness Penalty
www.loudnesspenalty.com/
Hey, my name's Josh and I'm a mastering engineer at Viking Lounge Mastering and a part of the audio team at Tommirock Studios. I want to make videos that help you on your audio journey so you can release better quality music! Let me know if there's any topic you want to know about in regards to audio, production, recording, mixing or mastering and I'd be happy to make a video about it.
Follow me on IG: josh.bartel

[@leshata6402]

You're a lifesaver bro. As a mixing engineer, I needed this.

[@Lee-kd9wk]

Very helpful and clearly stated thanks

[@ben9791]

thank you🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏

[@peterorany]

Great thanks.

[@darpps5481]

Surprised this has so little views, because this was extremely informal. Thanks so much

[@Josh.Bartel]

I appreciate that a lot, comments like that motivate me to make more videos even though they get little views. So I’m glad I could help 🙂

[@lawrencerasmus]

Thanks so much for this info ! I find that sending a mp3 to my phone and listening helps also the free or $50 version of Soundforge has a feature of mastering for social media.

[@Josh.Bartel]

Oh cool that’s awesome, I’ll have to check out the Soundforge software. I did a quick search and can’t find the social media feature but I’d imagine it’s probably setting the loudness, ceiling and file type automatically?

[@a2bs333]

Just found your channel. Loving the content and advice. I would like to add that when tracks are converted to AAC or MP3 for streaming there can be up to 1dB added to the track which can result in clipping. I now set my true peak limiter to - 1.5dB and have noticed a considerable difference in my songs especially with regard to distortion. If you're using Ozone to master you can use the codec to preview what songs will sound like in these formats. I used youlean loudness meter to confirm this 1dB bump in True peak values.

[@memeswillneverdie]

you only need 1db of headroom to avoid intersample peaks, 1.5db is just arbitrary, if you want to do it and get good results go for it but you only need 1 db when your using true peak limiting.

[@marvin1574]

what if you lower the limiter right before is distorts and now your volume is really low ? What other things can one do to bring up the volume ?perhaps add another limiter?

[@filmsandroses]

Hey so an issue I’m having is that when I’m very “novicely” mixing and mastering my track it sounds good on ableton (using the m-audio air or the scarlet 2i2 interface and Yamaha headphones) But when I send it to my phone and I use my AirPod pro to listen & it sounds super loud the vocals sound louder then the beat as if none of my mixing transferred over to my Phone. All the effects etc are there it’s just the audio levels that change any idea on why the change? I use stock plug-ins Eq, compressor, saturator multiband compression and light limiter.

[@dijanowe]

What DAW do you think is best for intermediate producers ?

[@Josh.Bartel]

I don’t think it really matters at all. Whatever you feel comfortable and efficient using. I have learnt to use protools, logic, cubase and reaper over the years because I needed to work with different clients/studios. If I was solely producing music, personally I’d pick either logic, cubase or ableton and aim to get really good at one of them.

[@2bitanalyst39]

I’ve tried two different distributors & every time I upload a song to Spotify it cuts my entire mix in half. What am I doing wrong?

[@djgalaxygddofficial]

It got be crying 😢

[@eli-shulga]

Dropped some coins to me (basically means "had some aha moments" over here...). One thing I still not clear for me are the true peaks. Lets say I use a reference track that pulled from KZbin (I know quality is poor..) Most of these will peak at 0dB even sometimes going over. But they are after all the YT conversion correction.. So how can you tell what is the true peak limit you should aim? -1db? -1.5db? You mentioned here you aim for around -0.5db but doesn't this means the song will be transformed with conversion? And second question - What about .mp4? YT will usaly be uploaded .mp4 files, so how these audio would be converted? Same as .wav to .mp3?

[@lumjian2212]

im using spotify to played my song sound was good on my monitor M-Audio BX5... but it sounds bad when i using the normal earphone ...

[@Josh.Bartel]

I’d recommend checking out my video on reference tracks. I talk about the importance of getting your music to translate to difference listening environments 🙂

[@krofxes808beats]

My tracks are so good and labels really like my music , but i have likek -6 -7 db on sites that show how much will destroy the quality Spotify and KZbin... I don't really understund what i should do.... How i need to make my master and all stuff.... I hate this so muchhhh when platforms destroy my quality!!!

[@Josh.Bartel]

So I have a few thoughts: If you and the label really like it then great job! It’s hard to give advice without hearing but maybe consider comparing two masters: - one more dynamic: back off the final limiter by a couple of dBs - one less dynamic: your original one Compare them both after normalisation. Then pick the one you like better 🙂 For louder genres I find -4 or -5dB of normalisation can still sound great, that’s my personal taste. 4:25 in the video: Apple actually recommends to master to capture your intended sound regardless of playback volume. As long as you check your masters through the streaming encoders to make sure they sound as good as possible compared to the original, that’s the most important thing to ensure the quality isn’t ruined 🙂

[@krofxes808beats]

@@Josh.Bartel thanks

[@kogagima289]

I haven't found any solution here

[@changriki]

The light on ur face is kinda creepy but the content is cool

[@Josh.Bartel]

Video skills are a work in progress haha