How Loud Should You Master Your Music?

Things I talk about in this video:

[MeterPlugs]

Great video, Jeff! Glad you like the site. We're always looking for ways to improve it, so appreciate your feedback. Multi-file processing is definitely one of the most requested features :)

In terms of the processing halting in background tabs, that appears to be the browser throttling JavaScript in background tabs. One way to get around this is to open instances of Loudness Penalty in separate windows - even if they are "behind" other windows, processing will continue. A bit annoying, but it'll let you process multiple songs at once.

Hope that helps!

[JesusMisericordioso]

thank you so much for all this info it helped me a lot, god bless you

[fourtheye]

Always great information in your videos...dug this one quite a bit. Thank you, brother!

[ChrisLodyMusic]

Excellent advice, thanks! This will be great for finding some optimal reference mixes to work from. A Dark Night is straight on that list.

[Zaleskee]

.. another sublime Master Class by a true Audio Professional & the Coolest Dude on YouTube🤓😎🤘🏼🤘🏼

[ernielgoh]

Hey Geoff, great video as always. Quick question: How do you monitor loudness for films mixed in surround? Would be great to hear your thoughts.

[OscarVinter]

Great stuff as always! Apologies if you have addressed this already, but what mic do you use and is there anything in the way of compression/EQ? Sounds so smooth and silky. Love it!

[frankcorreira]

Geoff, do you still use a limiter on your master bus? Or is that pointless & negated by the normalizer that is used among streaming services?

[RidvanDuzey]

Thanks for the great tip about this website!!

[samycolombano]

Great video. I did not know about this.

How about Facebook and Instagram, advertisement on those platforms. Any information on that ? I am in the midst of figuring out if I should deliver mixes to those platforms super loud because it is mainly on phones etc... and if a quieter mix will have his dB brought up which is quite handy in the end.

[MadkeimMusic]

Interesting topic, thanks! I wish you talked a little bit about dithering though. Should we do it or not? Does it depend on the platform the track will end up on?

[Wizardatwill]

So what are the penalties to go by!? For example what would be the numbers that we look for?
If we drag our file in there and it brings up numbers, what do we do next with those numbers adjust or leave it alone?"
Thank you!

[roryonabike]

Hi. There's something that I don't understand. Anyone using a major DAW or iZotope Insight has a loudness meter. The standards of the streaming services are publicly available. So you can figure this out, using basic arithmetic, for a single track or an entire album, and get lots of other information, such as dynamic range, besides. What does this tool do that you can't already do, leaving aside the fact that a loudness meter gives you more information right off the bat? By the way, was the result at 21:25 for Wichita Lineman?

[callumhoskin]

Would recommend Ozone Elements a lot - it seems to score really well!

[MusicalWizardryMarcoIannello]

I have mastered the tracks for my upcoming debut record setting Cubase at -13LUFS, and also put a limiter with a -1.0 ceiling at the end of the signal chain on the master track. I think my tracks sound quite all right, in terms of loudness. I want to give the website a try with my tracks, see how much it "punishes" me

[DataScientist]

I cant stop thinking about the nails now :)

[domgwland]

Whats the processing like on Soundcloud? I'm not there as a composer to be releasing stuff on itunes, spotify etc

[VillemR]

Hey Geoff! Really appreciate your videos and I've been subscribed since pretty much the beginning.
Really love your stuff, but just a had a small problem with this video. I feel like you use very loaded language in this video and could lead to people having a wrong idea about loudness.
So to explain: If you compare a track that gets normalized down by -5 dB and another that is not affected by normalization and say that the former is mastered at a subpar level, then I feel that all of that should come with a huge disclaimer:
Tracks mastered with a proper loudness level can still sound like garbage and tracks with more compression can still sound great. These standards are just guidelines to encourage responsible limiting.

All they essentially show is the potential for dynamic range. You don't have to use every dB, but it is not a bad idea to do so. Many novice mastering engineers need the guidelines to keep them from limiting their tracks to bricks, but experienced engineers can make tracks louder without introducing all of the problems you mention in the video. These standards are just here to level the playing field and encourage people to work with their ears: if it sounds good, it sounds good.
I know over-compression is a blight on modern music and you mean well, but I just wouldn't want someone to come away from your video thinking that compression = bad.

[MusicFactoryFreedom]

So if you had to give an opinion on this - would you prefer to have your music turned down by them, or have them turn it up?

[pizzanetwork]

How fat should my mix be for mastering or how thin?