Target LUFS?

[CaliforniaBurrito]

Spotify doesn't make your mix sound softer than others. This is why they use that gain control. Yours will sound exactly as loud as the rest but overly usage of compression might make it sound a little less dynamic and boring.

Yes exactly and less dynamics can come off as being "softer"!

Such words can be a bit confusing when talking about audio perception.

I'll never forget the guy in this forum who said mono mixes are supposed to sound like crap.

[Marco Raaphorst]

Spotify doesn't make your mix sound softer than others. This is why they use that gain control. Yours will sound exactly as loud as the rest but overly usage of compression might make it sound a little less dynamic and boring.

Yes exactly and less dynamics can come off as being "softer"!

Nope, it should sound the same. When listening to Spotify you should never need to touch the volume control. Works perfectly. Autogain.

[CaliforniaBurrito]

Yes exactly and less dynamics can come off as being "softer"!

Nope, it should sound the same. When listening to Spotify you should never need to touch the volume control. Works perfectly. Autogain.

I don't think you understand what I was getting at but if so please enlighten me. A less dynamic track will seem "softer" than a more dynamic track when played at the same loudness level.

[Marco Raaphorst]

Yes exactly and less dynamics can come off as being "softer"!

Nope, it should sound the same. When listening to Spotify you should never need to touch the volume control. Works perfectly. Autogain.

I don't think you understand what I was getting at but if so please enlighten me. A less dynamic track will seem "softer" than a more dynamic track when played at the same loudness level.

Please do some research on LUFS and how Spotify uses it.

On Spotify albums are balanced so all albums sound as loud. So volume difference in Spotify are no longer an issue.

This doesn't mean that some music doesn't sounds dull or badly mixed. But they do sound exactly as loud.

So the loudness war is over. Auto gain works wonderfully.

[CaliforniaBurrito]

Please do some research on LUFS and how Spotify uses it.

On Spotify albums are balanced so all albums sound as loud. So volume difference in Spotify are no longer an issue.

This doesn't mean that some music doesn't sounds dull or badly mixed. But they do sound exactly as loud.

So the loudness war is over. Auto gain works wonderfully.

This has absolutely nothing to do with level. The issue at hand is with the dynamics that are being lost with a limiter and how such a track compares to a track that has retained dynamics.

[Marco Raaphorst]

Please do some research on LUFS and how Spotify uses it.

On Spotify albums are balanced so all albums sound as loud. So volume difference in Spotify are no longer an issue.

This doesn't mean that some music doesn't sounds dull or badly mixed. But they do sound exactly as loud.

So the loudness war is over. Auto gain works wonderfully.

This has absolutely nothing to do with level. The issue at hand is with the dynamics that are being lost with a limiter and how such a track compares to a track that has retained dynamics.

If you have one album that is loudly mastered and one which is super dynamic, Spotify will auto gain them so they sound exactly as loud to the human ear. No need for volume adjustments.

The loudly mastered sounds (maybe) a little more dull because it lacks dynamics. Our ears like so small spikes in the signal. But this is just a matter of tast, no longer a matter of loudnes which used to be the case during loudness war.

So the only thing that is important is: how does it sound? Use compression and limiting as much as you would like but not as a Gain Tool but as a tool more a Certain Sound. It will NOT make your track sound louder it will ONLY do something to the dynamics.

[normen]

I think you're not really disagreeing, just focusing on different points. Yes, an over-compressed mix will sound soft/dull compared to the same mix without over-compression if they're played with the same loudness.

[CaliforniaBurrito]

The loudly mastered sounds (maybe) a little more dull because it lacks dynamics.

Yes this is exactly my point. I think when I get off work I will do an actual comparison of a track that has been pushed to an intense loudness vs being suitable for streaming - bringing the intense track down to streaming loudness of course. It would be interesting to actually hear a difference instead of theorizing.

[CaliforniaBurrito]

I think you're not really disagreeing, just focusing on different points. Yes, an over-compressed mix will sound soft/dull compared to the same mix without over-compression if they're played with the same loudness.

[Marco Raaphorst]

The loudly mastered sounds (maybe) a little more dull because it lacks dynamics.

Yes this is exactly my point. I think when I get off work I will do an actual comparison of a track that has been pushed to an intense loudness vs being suitable for streaming - bringing the intense track down to streaming loudness of course. It would be interesting to actually hear a difference instead of theorizing.

Yes, bottom line: just listen.

Compress, use limiting and listen back how that sounds. That's the only thing it takes these days.

[Marco Raaphorst]

Something else to consider: auto gain, at least in Spotify, is based on albums AND playlists not on tracks. Try this yourself:
- put a song in a playlist(s)
- compare its loudness to the album "version"

You can hear that the volume get adjust based on the avarage of the other tracks.

This might make stuff more complicated if you think about it

[Marco Raaphorst]

Some expert Reason users say: don't worry about it.

The streaming services all follow a different norm. So when you mix something super dynamic, the limiter on Spotify might kick in. Or YouTube, Apple Music etc.

-15 LUFS is my safe bet. For a song.

Can you elaborate on this built in limiter?

I was under the impression there was no limiters used by these services, which was the whole idea behind using LUF standards in the first place, right? Or did I miss something important?

What I understood to be the case with streaming services was that your music was analyzed and simply turned up or down to assure all music played at the same measured loudness.

If there are limiters being used, then it matters what levels you choose - but if not, then it only matters what you want your music to sound like. Meaning that if you want your music super-compressed, then do so (and understand it will be turned down when streaming, which is intended to do the same thing what a listener would do).



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I recently read about how TIDAL implements it. See this PDF: https://octo.hku.nl/octo/repository/get ... LlZPGSVXFM

Quote:

To avoid clipping, only attenuate tracks, never apply positive gain. If the loudest track of an album is softer than target level, all tracks of the album will play soft.

I guess the TIDAL method is best. This survey was done by a Dutch guy by the way: Eelco Grimm. I am proud too be Dutch too