Forget about LUFS! all Bullshit!!!

[Caine123]

for real, i read so much about LUFS and am making a Drum and bass track now and am hitting -6 LUFS and comparing to other popular DNB songs, i checked these from DnB, to EBM to Psytrance well to test

check this







-14 LUFS and so on my A** for real, i mix mostly under 8-LUFS etc. just to not have too much or any distortion/clipping at all (hearable) but checking these tracks and lady gaga, weeknd and other things i dont find any which are having -12 LUFS etc. it seems most dont care at all from the listeners.

guess my worries that i am at -6 LUFS and wanting it to turn down to -8 or -9 LUFS is stupid, why do i worry at all when popular tracks are even at -5 LUFS lol

[Frankie.T]

What matter is your song to sound good and be alligned with other songs in the same genre.

LUFS it's a way to measure loudness, not the holy grail to follow. So if your decisions are just because of that number, very likely your song will sound bad and unbalanced. But if it's just one of many factor you care of, isn't a BS, but just a value that say somenthing about your song.

So LUFS isn't BS, is just like meter, liter or whatever, if you are tall like 1,90 meter is an information, but say nothing about you being a good or bad person.

[Scotty]

TO be fair that software is marketed as helping the user achieve excellent masters. I ran the first version against 4 or 5 iconic tracks (its been a while) and it flagged issues in all of them. I decided relying on my ears, and paying attention to loudness penalties on various streaming services was the way forward for me.

What matter is your song to sound good and be alligned with other songs in the same genre.

LUFS it's a way to measure loudness, not the holy grail to follow. So if your decisions are just because of that number, very likely your song will sound bad and unbalanced. But if it's just one of many factor you care of, isn't a BS, but just a value that say somenthing about your song.

So LUFS isn't BS, is just like meter, liter or whatever, if you are tall like 1,90 meter is an information, but say nothing about you being a good or bad person.

[Lazarus451]

That old -13 LUFS is enough was such a stupid advice. Just master it to go with the genre. I master Synthwave and Melodic House to -6 to -8. If I would make acoustic folk, I would do -12 or something. Why would I put my masters to -13 LUFS if other tracks are -7 LUFS.

[Fannon]

If I understood this correctly, the -14 LUFS are still important, because this is what many streaming services will normalize your audio to. But that doesn't mean you need to hit exactly those -14 LUFS, just that it should be at least that. If you're less loud than this, they may be forced to do some loudness gain through limiting that you don't have under control.

So my takeaway is: Aim for at least -14 LUFS and then go louder depending on the style of music and how much dynamics I want to preserve. But be aware that if you make it louder, then streaming services will reduce volume anyway. So going louder than -14 LUFS is more of a stylistic choice, because you want a more compressed sound.

[dionenoid]

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

https://productionadvice.co.uk/no-lufs- ... OnekpP9ZSw

[billinder33]

You want your LUFS value to match the genera, not the streaming service recommendations that professional mastering engineers completely ignore.

[osiris]

There's a great AI thing called Mix Check and it will tell you how things will sound on different platforms. It seems Apple 'normalizes' everything so it all will play at the same volume. It will tell you Apple will reduce your audio by 5 decibels or more on a really loud track.

[Dirtgrain]

Not all genres/types of music are as forgiving to clipped/fattened-sausage profiles.

[bmanic]

As always, all of this is entirely subjective and has extreme reliance on GENRE of music. -6 LUFS for classical music would be insane and sound completely wrong.. whereas for smashed modern Drum&Bass is right where many consider the sweet spot lies (though personally I think -7 or -8 LUFS would be better sounding).

LUFS is not a scientific measure, it has no "right" nor "wrong", it's entirely subjective. Due to the loudness wars era (late 90's to today) several generations have grown up with "a sound" in their mind and that sound was squashed and dense. Thus people who like that kind of sound (the vast majority of people under 30 apparently) will be thoroughly disappointed in how a -14 LUFS track will present itself. Heck, it can be downright difficult to achieve -14 LUFS in a modern pop track of any kind.. it's actually way easier to hit -10 LUFS or so.

There was a good discussion about all of this over at Gearspace mastering forum many years ago and the overall consensus seemed to be that the overall sweet spot for most modern genres lies between -10 to -8 LUFS short term (meaning a window of 3 seconds). It's also worth noting that LUFS intergrated is very often quite useless as a measure, especially if you compare one track to another. You'll be way better off using LUFS short term in the loudest sections of each track.

Anyhow, -6 LUFS is what I consider "dangerous and very compromising" territory. It only works for a very specific type of super dense "I don't give a shit about distortion" kind of sound. If that's your thing, roll with it! If not, better try to keep it between -10 to -7 LUFS. I advice to completely ignore -14 LUFS rules.. they are all 100% bogus when measured by customer satisfaction and current modern aesthetics, though it's completely genre dependent.

[ampetrosillo]

Yeah, it's just like what they say, "5" is all you need", but Caine123's mum loves my big fat 7"+ sausage. So play to your audience.

[plexuss]

What is your True Peak set at in Expose? There is a lot of over-TP warmings (red). If TP is set at 0 then these represent clipping. If that is the case you might want to try using a true peak limiter which will likely increase audio fidelity.

[zerocrossing]

If I understood this correctly, the -14 LUFS are still important, because this is what many streaming services will normalize your audio to. But that doesn't mean you need to hit exactly those -14 LUFS, just that it should be at least that. If you're less loud than this, they may be forced to do some loudness gain through limiting that you don't have under control.

So my takeaway is: Aim for at least -14 LUFS and then go louder depending on the style of music and how much dynamics I want to preserve. But be aware that if you make it louder, then streaming services will reduce volume anyway. So going louder than -14 LUFS is more of a stylistic choice, because you want a more compressed sound.

^This. LUFS isn’t necessarily something that the end user experiences, it’s a way that streaming services make sure there’s a pretty uniform loudness from song to song without having to compress the dynamic range.

So, what’s funny is that the game console I’m working in has a guidline of -18 LUFS for SFX. The producer constantly criticized my weapon sounds as being too weak, but we had them close to maxed out. Finally I said f’it and I just mixed them to -6 LUFS and made sure they didn’t peak over -1.5. He then remarked, “the new weapon sounds are great!”

[zerocrossing]

Yeah, it's just like what they say, "5" is all you need", but Caine123's mum loves my big fat 7"+ sausage. So play to your audience.

Is it an Italian sausage? Pork? Did you buy it in a store pre-cooked, or make it yourself? I do enjoy a good Italian sausage that’s got a lot of fennel seeds. Seems harder to find in California than NY.

[jamcat]

OP has it backwards. DnB is bullshit.