Appreciate all this IAN, you're literally the number 1 guy I trust online for providing these audio explanations / solutions, you actually dig right into it, explain it, and make the info usable for us. I've utilised what you have said over the years and it has always been INCREDIBLY helpful. Thanks for the LUFS chat.
Super interesting as always ! 😀🙏👏👏👏👏. Thank you for taking of your very precious time for making instructive videos like this one ! 😀 What about radio stations ? How do they work in terms of loudness normalization ? What would happen if 2 songs are being played one after another on radio if the first song is mastered at -6 LUFS integrated and the next song is mastered at -11 LUFS integrated ? Will the second song sound much more quiet generally ? Or is there some kind of standards in terms of loudness normalization for radio stations ? What about songs being played on radio in about 150 countries, for example. Would music benefit from being mastered loud considering it could be an international radio hit in 150+ countries where I guess each country and each radio station has its own loudness normalization standards or even worse, no normalization at all ? That's a subject nobody talks about and in my opinion, it is important to expect that any song could become viral and become by surprise an international radio hit like it happened with Dance Monkey by Tones and I, so I am thinking that not only streaming platforms should drive how music is generally mastered. What do you think about all this ? Could it be complex enough to make a full video about the subject ? Best Regards from Montreal, Canada ! 😀👋🎶🎵🎶🎵
Thanks Ian, always very interesting and very clear in your explanations. From there, I always wonder why the vast majority of blockbusters are mastered above -8 lufs (max short term) and how they are accepted on streaming platforms with very often true peaks well above 0dBFs. Is there some kind of exceptions for these productions ?
No, that’s just the choice made by the artists and/or engineers. People are still concerned about un-normalised playback, being ‘competitive’ and ‘needing’ loudness to achieve the right sound. The first of these is valid but so out-weighed by the normalised situation it has to be less important for me, but the second two are just red hearings. PS. As far as being accepted with very high loudness and True Peaks, none of the services will reject music based on the measurements, there are just recommendations to bear in mind
I’d like to see a LUFS-I design that allows the user select the criteria for the analysis, ie Short Term target min and max values and possibly a target average. I’ve been kinda doing this with the short term histogram for a mixing protocol I’m developing.
Great video. Would love to see one example of , i'll use Skrillex who is known to push his tracks to some crazy Lufs S, as a breakdown. Or Mefjus, Buunshin, Current Value , dnb producers who push their songs quite loud, and still make them sound good. Anyway keep up the great work. Watching Skrillex vs Loudness war
I used to master to a specific overall value(I didn't know better, it seemed logical). Now I master based on compression(don't want to smash the song but I do want to level it out some. But at the end of my mastering chain I do change the output so that the song has an overall level of -14lufs. You say it doesn't matter BUT i Listen, most often, on my MP3 player while exercising. I have a combination of my own music and commercially produced music. The last commercially produced music I put on the MP3 was a Joe Bonamassa album. It was mastered to overall 11 LUFS. Well, the listening level would be way too loud when I listened to that versus my own music. So I had to turn it down,. then one of my songs would play and I had to turn it up. I remastered(level only) the Bonamassa album to -14lufs and problem solved. I wish they had a portable MP3 player that would turn music up/down based on a user entered overall LUFS level.
@@ProductionAdvice This is not for Spotify, youtube... - it is for my own MP3 -player. It doesn't normalize automatically. If it did, I wouldn't have to do this. If I didn't choose a target LUFS for my own mixes the volume level would be all over the place. I wish I could find an MP3 player that would normalize, then I wouldn't have to do this.
Any chance you are a late 90s early 2k prorec forum user? One thing I was shocked at was how the black album sounds so much more dynamic compared to everything here. I don't know most of this music but the black album sounded like dog shit to me then and still does. it has straight up hard clipping in the master like an L1 Been forever since I thought about this Clipping isn't bad, it's how you clip That record still sounds like garbage to me and everything else here sounds louder (not necessarily better) Meh Who cares really cool episode, I only streamed audio for it so if this had a video component as it sounded like it did, I didn't look. Thanks for you insight
Very informative. Thanks Ian. My favourite reference tracks on cd vary from -9 short term to -14. Your -10 short term for recommendation is helpful.
Appreciate all this IAN, you're literally the number 1 guy I trust online for providing these audio explanations / solutions, you actually dig right into it, explain it, and make the info usable for us. I've utilised what you have said over the years and it has always been INCREDIBLY helpful. Thanks for the LUFS chat.
That’s great to hear, glad it’s been useful for you !
Super interesting as always ! 😀🙏👏👏👏👏. Thank you for taking of your very precious time for making instructive videos like this one ! 😀
What about radio stations ? How do they work in terms of loudness normalization ? What would happen if 2 songs are being played one after another on radio if the first song is mastered at -6 LUFS integrated and the next song is mastered at -11 LUFS integrated ? Will the second song sound much more quiet generally ? Or is there some kind of standards in terms of loudness normalization for radio stations ? What about songs being played on radio in about 150 countries, for example. Would music benefit from being mastered loud considering it could be an international radio hit in 150+ countries where I guess each country and each radio station has its own loudness normalization standards or even worse, no normalization at all ? That's a subject nobody talks about and in my opinion, it is important to expect that any song could become viral and become by surprise an international radio hit like it happened with Dance Monkey by Tones and I, so I am thinking that not only streaming platforms should drive how music is generally mastered. What do you think about all this ? Could it be complex enough to make a full video about the subject ?
Best Regards from Montreal, Canada ! 😀👋🎶🎵🎶🎵
Thanks for that Ian. Makes a lot of sense and def will help with my new releases. Best wishes.
Thanks Ian, always very interesting and very clear in your explanations.
From there, I always wonder why the vast majority of blockbusters are mastered above -8 lufs (max short term) and how they are accepted on streaming platforms with very often true peaks well above 0dBFs. Is there some kind of exceptions for these productions ?
No, that’s just the choice made by the artists and/or engineers. People are still concerned about un-normalised playback, being ‘competitive’ and ‘needing’ loudness to achieve the right sound. The first of these is valid but so out-weighed by the normalised situation it has to be less important for me, but the second two are just red hearings.
PS. As far as being accepted with very high loudness and True Peaks, none of the services will reject music based on the measurements, there are just recommendations to bear in mind
I’d like to see a LUFS-I design that allows the user select the criteria for the analysis, ie Short Term target min and max values and possibly a target average.
I’ve been kinda doing this with the short term histogram for a mixing protocol I’m developing.
Great video. Would love to see one example of , i'll use Skrillex who is known to push his tracks to some crazy Lufs S, as a breakdown. Or Mefjus, Buunshin, Current Value , dnb producers who push their songs quite loud, and still make them sound good. Anyway keep up the great work. Watching Skrillex vs Loudness war
I used to master to a specific overall value(I didn't know better, it seemed logical). Now I master based on compression(don't want to smash the song but I do want to level it out some. But at the end of my mastering chain I do change the output so that the song has an overall level of -14lufs. You say it doesn't matter BUT i Listen, most often, on my MP3 player while exercising. I have a combination of my own music and commercially produced music. The last commercially produced music I put on the MP3 was a Joe Bonamassa album. It was mastered to overall 11 LUFS. Well, the listening level would be way too loud when I listened to that versus my own music. So I had to turn it down,. then one of my songs would play and I had to turn it up. I remastered(level only) the Bonamassa album to -14lufs and problem solved. I wish they had a portable MP3 player that would turn music up/down based on a user entered overall LUFS level.
It sounds as if you’re saying your player doesn’t normalise automatically, is that right ? So you’re making the adjustment by hand ?
@@ProductionAdvice This is not for Spotify, youtube... - it is for my own MP3 -player. It doesn't normalize automatically. If it did, I wouldn't have to do this. If I didn't choose a target LUFS for my own mixes the volume level would be all over the place. I wish I could find an MP3 player that would normalize, then I wouldn't have to do this.
Any chance you are a late 90s early 2k prorec forum user? One thing I was shocked at was how the black album sounds so much more dynamic compared to everything here. I don't know most of this music but the black album sounded like dog shit to me then and still does. it has straight up hard clipping in the master like an L1
Been forever since I thought about this
Clipping isn't bad, it's how you clip
That record still sounds like garbage to me and everything else here sounds louder (not necessarily better)
Meh
Who cares
really cool episode, I only streamed audio for it so if this had a video component as it sounded like it did, I didn't look. Thanks for you insight