Why Mastering to -14dB LUFS is Completely WRONG!!

[mostillusions]

Measureing LUFs for a couple of seconds is not integrated, integrated is measuring the whole song.

[taloowa]

The other flaw is that you don’t subtract the peak level from your LUFS average. If your meter says -11 and it peaks at -3, your LUFS is -11. Chris Muth, former chief engineer at Sterling Sound. I lived the loudness wars from the vinyl era through CD and streaming.

[flibflob]

The Advice I've heard, and that somehow makes sense to me is "As loud as possible without sacrificing quality"

[joosakurvinen]

Eh, this mostly seems quite wrong too.. Always master to -14 dB LUFS is bad advice, but so is targeting -8 dB.

If you are releasing ONLY on the streaming services, then there is no need to make any sacrifices to get the song louder than -14 LUFS, because louder ones will be turned down anyway. That's not to say you can't or shouldn't ever make it louder than that. Many songs may benefit from a lesser dynamic range and a more limited sound. If that's the case, then go for it. Just make sure you gain match when comparing.

The point is, you no longer need to make it loud just for the sake of being as loud or louder than others. You have the freedom to do whatever most benefits the song you're working with. I couldn't really care less what the average loudness of some random pro mastered songs are, and neither should you. That's almost like measuring how much green color an average pro painting has. There is no one optimal loudness value to target. It all depends on the genre, the specific song and your taste.

[jagojames]

The information in this video is completely wrong. This is not how you measure loudness and will give you a false result. The -14LuFS figure is NOT a peak measurement. It is the average value (integrated loudness) across your whole song. In this way some parts can be louder than -14Lufs short term loudness (which is what he is measuring) as long as you have quieter parts to balance it out.

[IanJCole]

you should be using Integrated LUFS across the track not a 2-3sec loud part so your information is flawed

[moontan]

i think -14 LUFS is still too loud for certain types of music.
-8 LUFS??
that's crazy, it is songs that have no dynamic range and/or are squashed badly.
Loudness can only be felt if there are quiet sections to compare it to.
Pink Floyd and Led Zeppelin made amazing music that had way more dynamic range.
today's music has totally gone to shit.
it's music that is compressed to death so it can be listened to in a noisy environment.
people don't really listen to music anymore.

[philColour]

This is largely on point. As others have mentioned you do need to play all the source audio to get the Integrated rating. Point stands though, the -14LUFS is to normalise levels across a range of material for a good listening experience - it's not a target to aim for when mastering.

Also worth noting different genres call for different LUFS rating. Most pop, rock and dance music suits a level of -8 or above imo (even when 'turned down' to -14), but if you push a nu-jazz or lofi hip-hop song to that level you will likely ruin it.

I think the biggest problem here is that Spotify has (or had) a guide saying that files above -14LUFS will be turned down, and that this can cause distortions or audio degradation. In my experience, having mastered 100's of songs at -8 or higher that have gone on to streaming services, none of them have suffered any noticeable loss in quality, and I think what the crux of this video is about... is that if I had mastered these songs to -14 in the first place they would not sound as clear, powerful, punchy etc.. in fact, the client would be saying, bro, why is this so quiet compared to all the other tracks I have in my collection i.e. downloaded from Bandcamp, Beatport etc..

[djnaydee]

Yup. I've been mastering at -8 for many years, because from all my testing, its the loudest I can get songs without introducing distortion or artifacts and still keep that punch that hits you in the chest.

[altmanidan]

as a pro mixer I can validate what this guy is saying. I've been mastering for years with -10dBFS RMS (very close to -10 LUFS) and I never bothered changing anything when the whole loudness normalisation algorithm appeared. its not just a number, more than this usually sounds a bit over compressed a bit harsh and below this is not compressed enough. we need compression for everything to sit well together, its not just a loudness thing and -10 usually gives me the right amount of compression without adding any distortion. loud and clear

[jimrogers]

One major contributing factor to the current loudness war was moving from tape based recording to digital. With magnetic tape, there was a “universal” reference level of 0 VU (volume units) equaling a known voltage level… in this case .7 ish volts into a specified impedance. With digital, since there was only a maximum level ceiling of 0 dBFS, reference levels now became whatever someone chose as their in-house standard, which is born out in all of the streaming services movie and programming soundtracks being all over the map. Originally, ‘zero’ reference levels were established because of the physical limitations of the medium used to carry the material (tape and vinyl can only be pushed so far before they compromise fidelity). With digital, fidelity as a goal has been compromised for data compaction and loudness. I miss ‘excellent fidelity’.

[timothybondaudio]

So, if you take the LUFS of the loudest section of the song, doesn't this artificially increase your LUFS value? If you measure the whole track then your peak section of -8 LUFS drops down to -10/-11 or lower depending on the track. Surely what is important is dynamic range? If you master to -14 LUFS and your peak is -5dB then that's no different to -10dB with a -1dB peak. Also, just from a musical point of view, the streaming platforms' arbitrary choice of -14dB LUFS and -1dB peak (more or less) gives us 13dB of dynamic range to use with no penalty, so maybe this is an opportunity to re-educate ourselves and the public to having music with some actual dynamics? The -8dB 'standard' was for CD production and maybe we've moved on from that? We used to high-pass everything at 40Hz to stop the needle from popping out of the record. Mastering to -6dB just squashes the life out of everything and makes it sound crappy regardless of how well done.

[gearslasher]

It depends. If you turn on Sound Check in Apple's Music App, the program material is about -15 to -13 dB LUFS. If you turn that off, you see, what's described in the video.

[RobHarrison]

-14 predates the LUFS system as the LUFS calculation (over the whole song not the loudest bits) was developed to support it. Bob Katz the (yes v professional) mastering engineer was I believe pivotal to it’s development and -14 was in use via his K system K-14 long before the meter or the streaming services existed. It’s based on an 83DB calibrated room. Read up on the Bob Katz K system. I’m not saying you should master to -14 if aim is to chart a single just know that there is a lot of logic around the -14 number and it is targeting home listening and enjoyment over time.

[danniielle]

Many of the mixes you've mentioned here would sound a lot more dynamic and less fatiguing if they were mastered at closer to -14LUFS. -8 is still FAR too loud.
I'm a professional engineer with four decades experience and am personal friends with a number of high profile mastering engineers including as Bob Katz, Ian Shepherd, Lucas Pimentel and Bill Roberts. We have been pushing for the -14LUFS standard for many years and finally, most of the streaming platforms including YouTube, Spotify, Tidal, Apple Music and others are normalising to -14LUFS. If you master louder to make your track louder by squashing the dynamics, it WON'T sound louder on the aforementioned platforms. All you will do is produce a sub standard release that could sound better if it was mastered at a more sensible level.
I don't care what the chart toppers are doing. Too many are still caught up in the loudness wars mindset to some degree. The measurements you've displayed in this video are evidence.

[ruprechtsrubberglove]

Streaming services turn your -8 lufs track down to -14, and usually sounds worse than a master aimed for -14. I know from experience having a loud track that sounded great go onto the services to be flattened by the streaming normalisation

[danielbadideashaver]

Yeah, I went down the -14 Lufs road once, everything was quieter than what was out there, across the board. It's the usual gatekeeping from the music industry and it's people giving you BS info to keep themselves ahead. If you're making any pop oriented music, -7 Lufs. I don't care who says it too loud, I don't care who says it's clipping, these crabs are trying to keep me in a bucket and I refuse.

[gzis]

Fake information that will lead your songs to worse quality when uploading on platforms with normalization applied. Yes, mastering to CD or club levels is important when you go for live performance. But these days everyone is sharing their products via yt or spotify and those are really normalized to -14. So when you upload on one of these platforms song that was mastered to higher values, it for sure has impact on dynamics, volume and overral quality. Try for yourself and youll see. Learnig by yourself is better than listening to someones opinion, who obviously isnt saying all of the information.

[wickydot]

in the article they never stated if the loseless files they bought were the same files that are uploaded to streaming services

[ArcRunner]

Thank-you for pointing this out.

I was first introduced to the concept of a Crest Factor by Bob Katz book Mastering Audio (1st edition circa '03 - there are newer versions) and he advocated for a K-14 standard. I've found that as I and music I love has aged, the stuff that holds closer to K-14 and K-12 holds more of my interest over time than more compressed works.

Yes, that's no way to win the chart in the current market place, but I'd put the thought out there for artists to have a mix of your work available that can be mastered to -14, -12, -10, -8, etc. dB So that when you and your fans are older, you have another way to re-vitalize your work.