The Future of Mastering: Loudness in the Age of Music Streaming

In this presentation, GRAMMY-nominated mastering engineer Alan Silverman shows how music streaming services have turned the world of mastering for loudness upside down.

Explore how the tools and techniques that mix and mastering engineers of the 21st century are changing quickly in response to the automatic volume normalization happening on platforms like Spotify, YouTube, Apple Music, Google Play, Pandora and more.

[lucas.n]

14:00 the Streaming services don't seem to care much about the listener's health when they play their ads though.

[dontaskwhatkindofmusic]

i haven't been paying attention to what he's saying but the sound of his calm voice has improved my mastering skills

[HW]

My girlfriend called me halfway through this and I never felt so much interrupted in my whole life

[nibblesd.biscuits]

A quiet guy speaking softly about loudness. 👍🏼

[eddysel]

He deserves a grammy. One of the best explanations on this topic. 30 minutes was too short. I wish he had the time to really show how to use those loudness meters / plugins.

[ShapeNoise]

Phasing tracks to hear what Limiters are doing is a cool tip

[TheBitBigBand]

Alan masters ALL of our recordings and he is a certifiable bad ass through and through!

[xsatn]

That dynamic range of the jazz track really made it sound interesting and pleasant to the ear others were boring

[robbrown]

This was a very interesting presentation, but kinda sucks that he got rushed for time towards the end. I feel like he possibly had a plethora of more information he could have provided. I would love to see a "full length" un-rushed presentation of this material. It would be great if Alan could record the full version and upload to youtube. I feel like it's an important message to get out there.

[morgendorffer]

as reggie watts would say: "... and there is a profoundness... to this loudness... that is especially hard... to come down with"

[plasticmummyhead]

My mind is blown. I feel like one of those soldiers who's been hiding in the woods and didn't know that the war is over. Thank you Alan! What a great presentation, wish I could hear the rest!

[michaelfarrow]

Having known Alan for 40 years, I was very happy to see him again, if only virtually. Alan's musicality has always brightly shown through on every project we have worked on together. Alan, thanks for sharing your insight into a complex, changing and sometimes confusing subject.

[julianchlin]

11:06 is the key point, 12:19 pop dynamic rang, 12:57 peak normalization, 14:12 loundness normalization, 16:43 new targets, 24:19 different level demo track, 25:13 Level all the same, 26:10 what happened, 28:00 VU is getting back!

[DannySullivanMusic]

23:27 is when it all came together for me. This is an important message and I'm glad Alan shared it with all of us.

[BooyahL]

Really cool for the NBA commissioner to give audio engineering advice on his free time

[camilosilva]

You can tell someone is a true soundengineer when he wears sonic protection on stage while giving a seminar... Thumbs up for him!!

[OdinOfficialEmcee]

I always mix with a VU meter. Everything gain staged to -18db on the individual tracks before I mix and a VU Meter on the master buss calibrated to -14db and the records really do sound so much better when the final mix is done.

[backwardclock]

As a mix and master engineer, this is a conversation i am continually having with artists. This is a great talk, thank you so much for sharing

[AMprd]

What a time to be alive gentlemen, this video really gave me a good mood.

[TT-mdmm]

Yoooo, my mastering engineer learned under Alan Silverman and speaks VERY highly of him. Listen to everything this dude says.