Loudness Targets for different styles?

[Boldi 1]

What are the Loudness Targets for this Styles


Funk
Soul
Jazz
House (Soulfull Jazz Afro)
Hip Hop
Downbeat/Beats



Thanx

[thecontrolcentre]

Mixing or mastering?

[kritikon]

0 LUFS integrated, irrespective of style.

We'll get there eventually.

[kritikon]

Actually, WhyTF can't we go positive? I want +5 LUFS.

[BertKoor]

Actually, WhyTF can't we go positive? I want +5 LUFS.

You can. Render to 32bit floats, not integers and never let it stream or compress to mp3.

[Hermetech Mastering]

Every track on Merzbow's 'Pulse Demon' album has positive LUFS I figures and TPs over +5db...

To address the OP, loudness targets are a really stupid idea, IMO.

[empphryio]

I'm curious of some general answer to this. Or why their shouldn't be a target at all. Mostly I do aim for -14 LUFS integrated. Mostly I have been making "new age" music with little to no drums. But today I did something very drum heavy that sounds good at -20. I try to get it down to -14 and it turns to absolute crap. Goes from something even I could dance to, a little, to just some random noises thrown together. There must be a way to get it to -14 decently I guess.

[thecontrolcentre]

But today I did something very drum heavy that sounds good at -20. I try to get it down to -14 and it turns to absolute crap.

What exactly did you do to make it 6db louder?

[empphryio]

But today I did something very drum heavy that sounds good at -20. I try to get it down to -14 and it turns to absolute crap.

What exactly did you do to make it 6db louder?

I spent a few hours doing a bunch of stuff. I tried compressing the individual drum tracks up to 5:1. Threshold -25dB. I also tried just compressing the master. Trying to trim off the top 5 or 10 dBs at high ratios. Also tried drum bus. Limiter. Used No.6, TD Kotelnikov and Solid Dynamics (NI). I don't know. Maybe just wore myself out. Did also make sure the tracks level.

[empphryio]

LOL. I figured it out. Had nothing to do with compression. Though I'm still interested to hear about targets.
I switched from 4/4 to 3/4. (Weird tune). But I had A1triggergate over a pad that was still in 4/4. Pretty stupid.

[Hermetech Mastering]

I'm curious of some general answer to this.

There isn't one, except make it sound as good as you can with a loudness level that works for the track or album.

Or why their shouldn't be a target at all.

Because when creating art the last thing on one's mind should be how loud you want to make it. Because these so called "loudness targets" were never meant to be prescriptive for producers, they are simply playback levels set by streaming services that can and do often change. Unless you want to keep chasing moving targets and illusory figures, stop thinking about the numbers and instead place that focus on making the music sound as good as it can be. We should be in the business of emotional engagement here, screw the numbers.

[empphryio]

I know about the loudness wars BTW. So I guess different streaming services have different targets and you just aim for that? I use amazon music and maybe they have no target. The volume is annoyingly inconsistent from one artist to the next. If I want to listen to music as I fall asleep I have to just pick one album.

[Hermetech Mastering]

You are perhaps missing the point. You don't aim for any loudness target. You aim to make the music sound the best it can be, numbers be damned. Streaming platforms will do their own thing and often change their playback levels, there's no point in chasing that.

Last time I'll say it here:

Loudness Streaming Normalisation Playback Levels Are Not Prescriptive Targets For Mix Engineers!!!

Not sure if cross posting is allowed here, but there's a really good thread on it over at the other place, lots of great info there:

https://gearspace.com/board/mastering-f ... ot-do.html

[kritikon]

I know about the loudness wars BTW. So I guess different streaming services have different targets and you just aim for that? I use amazon music and maybe they have no target. The volume is annoyingly inconsistent from one artist to the next. If I want to listen to music as I fall asleep I have to just pick one album.

They have differing targets (some are quite similar though) but it doesn't actually mean anything. Much of the stuff on Spotify, YT etc is still incredibly heavily squashed, just that the streaming service then normalises it. It hasn't made any difference to the loudness wars and individual artists/labels etc still squash as loud as they can and to their own levels - they just seem to accept that YT etc are going to normalise it down and they live with that rather than squash it any less. I checked quite a few tracks out recently - mostly on YT - and they are almost all heavily squashed and normalised down heavily according to the YT target. Even all of their ads are normalised down because the ads are over their targets too. Ultimately it just means most tracks have a quieter peak but they still are -10 LUFs or higher.

General scenario from musos/labels appears to be - f**k YT/Spotify or anyone else that says I limit too heavily, I'm going to continue doing it.

[Hermetech Mastering]

Streaming services don't give a crap about how heavily you limit, or not, they are concerned with normalising average playback levels only. Clip and limit as much as you like, or not, whatever suits your music best.