I get also +0.6 dBTP. As long it doesn’t clip I don’t think that’s a problem . Many CDs are a lot above 0 dBTP.
1 Like
Ah yes, you’re right, it’s 0.6. Even though I’m still not used to it, I should get other glasses. Anyway, this made me curious, so I grabbed a standalone version of Youlean and checked several songs from my favorites (MP3 and Bandcamp). The average integrated LUFS value is -9, which is not surprising. But a TP value between 0.8 and 2.5 surprises me just as much as a loudness range between 0.5 LU (yes indeed, zero point five) and 4 LU. I just have found one single song that has a bigger range than that. So according to that the values of my WIP seem to be pretty good, right? 
Shouldn’t be the target -14 LUFS? Why so loud?
1 Like
Because I don’t create music just to post it on Soundcloud or elsewhere. A value between -7 and -9 LUFS is common for dance music that is supposed to be played in a club or at home. And I as a non-professional refuse to master my stuff for every platform individually, not only because there’s no reward. Furthermore I think the stuff sounds good in general, regardless of the platform. 
3 Likes
Ok, I really like your last mix and style, too. But it seems to me that some depth is lost due to the extreme loudness.
working on this:
and this one
That’s a common loudness in case of my tracks. Almost all my tracks are that “loud”, and I don’t think that I’ve lost much “depth”. -9 LUFS is a common value for every single electronic dance track. In fact it’s the lower limit, there are also tracks that have -8, -7 or even -6 LUFS. Maybe you’re losing a little bit of dynamics, but that’s quite normal. You always have to make a decision. Keep all the dynamics but remain too silent or maybe lose some dynamics and have a proper loudness. I will always choose the loudness as long as it’s not too loud, but that’s not the case with -9 LUFS. We’re not producing classical music that needs all those dynamics. We’re producing electronic sound that should be played in a club, and therefore you need some “impact” in your sound. Right?! 
@imapeppertoo
Looks like you’re at the very beginning of your compositions. It’s way too early to say anything about it.
3 Likes
Depends, if a dj is streaming your song (very unlikely, more usually .wav or .mp3 on a usb sitck), then the streaming compression CODECS and bandwidth policing will clip the song to mush.
But if a dj downloads the song from beatport or hardtunes or amazon, etc…to their drive, then there is no lossy streaming compression and -9 → -6 is very typical.
Seems stream is one LUFS (generally -14 LTI, -1dBTP) and downloading is another (-9-6 LTI -1dBTP).
So, gonna say, mebbe good to do the right thing for the place it’s gonna be at.
One thing that is rarely mentioned in these discussions is the role of Dynamic Range in loudness normalization.
A track in -14 LUFS can sound as loud (or louder) as a -9 LUFS one after normalization if it has more DR. The opposite can also happen, though. A track that’s loud all the time will get a bigger loudness penalty than one with quieter sections intercalated with loud ones.
The following video (see timestamp) shows an excellent example:
The same song with a master from 2015 (-11.7 LUFS) is compared to a 2023 cover (-9 LUFS).
After loudness normalization, the older version actually sounds way louder than the 2023 one! Why? Simple: Dynamic Range.
In the end, in a normalized scenario (such as streaming), Dynamic Range ends up being more important than the LUFS measuring.
If we’re not considering normalization, though, -9 LUFS seems to be one of the most common values for “dancefloor oriented” genres. In my opinion it’s the sweet spot for mastering, as long as you watch the Dynamic Range in the limiting process.
Speaking of which, modern limiters such as DMG Audio Limitless and sonible smart:limit are super transparent and have really fancy processing going under the hood, so “loud” does not mean “distorted” or “squashed” anymore. You can go really loud without losing dynamics with these fancy limiters, as they have transient separation and dynamic preserving algorithms.
Now, going back to LUFS… Despite -14 LUFS being used by several different platforms, AES is currently suggesting an even quieter standard for streaming: -16 LUFS for “Pop Music”! Yes, that’s really quiet, I know it. I cannot show the charts here as they’re copyrighted information, but the paper can be found here: AES772023 Recommended Practice Loudness Guidelines for Internet Audio Streaming and On-Demand Distribution.
4 Likes
Good point, @untilde . Nevertheless you might lose some dynamics, but not too much. Unless you’re squashing your sound to death, but you would notice it immediately while listening. 
I don’t think that one really needs a special fancy magical limiter to get the results. As long as you’ve done the mixing right (including compression of course), there’s not much that can go wrong while limiting, right? Personally I prefer to use a maximizer, and the chosen one is the one by Weiss. Transparency is always key, and this one is very transparent.
@Jek
Have you ever seen or heard of a DJ streaming? I haven’t. That’s out of the question, right? If a DJ is interested in playing my songs, I usually get a message asking for the MP3s. But besides of that, TP is also a factor. But in fact I never experienced any clipping since I’m limiting properly. The only thing that I was experiencing (but only on Soundcloud) for two or three times are some slight artifacts, but not because of the louder parts of the song. IF it happens, it always affects the higher frequencies such as for example from an open hat. I guess that’s a Soundcloud thing. I still want to find out why, but on the other hand I don’t care because those are individual cases. 
1 Like
Not at all. A lot of DJs stream these days
Professional DJs? Serious professional DJs? Never seen one, never heard of one. At least not when it comes to Techno, Electro and generally Electronic “underground” stuff. Streaming sound quality is worse than MP3 and MP3 is worse than WAV (or let’s say vinyl), I assume a serious DJ wouldn’t choose the worst option.
1 Like
No, I would be surprised if a serious professional DJ was streaming tracks. But there are a lot of unserious unprofessional DJs out there
And a lot of them are streaming through tidal, and even SoundCloud
Most serious DJs that I know, at least, won’t even bother with MP3s. It’s wav or (rarely) vinyl. Maybe an MP3 in a pinch if a wav is not available
But the kids these days, man… I know a bunch of DJs that stream tracks
Young teens, right? “DJs” that are as much “DJ” as someone who sees a DAW for the first time in life is a “producer”. C’mon!
That’s what I’m talking about. Personally I think that a disc jockey who can’t handle discs isn’t a disc jockey. But I know that many DJs, even some of the most popular ones, don’t play discs anymore. It’s more convenient because tempo adaption is happening by a simple mouse click and doesn’t need to be done by the DJ himself, and the DJ doesn’t need to carry tons of vinyl to the party. Nevertheless it’s a pitty. DJing was a kind of art, but now DJing is mostly just a slightly better playlist player that everyone could handle.
Fully agree.
I used to hope that when manual beatmatching got easier, it would lead to greater creativity but no, just auto-sync, boring selections and hot knobbing galore.
It speaks to more of a trend of being less connected to music. I used to love my vinyl and programming sets, knowing what i had at home when i was at the record store and planning what would mix with what. Now its just live spotify playlists it feels like. A real shame.
I really like DJjay, that macos (and now windows, too) dj app, which could directly stream from spotify, sadly spotify disabled it. Spotify sucks, it should burn in hell. No need for a mixer hardware anymore, my 2 cents… Uh what’s the topic?
Ok deleted
Here a storm in a teacup:
Do you like it? I currently have no idea how to continue it harmonically. Needs some change to a “part b” or so…
Just finished this track now,i really like this one,rare for me to like what i make
3 Likes
That track is lovely,pristine sound,clear crystal,floating on clouds.
I like the drum mixing too,do you have tape emulators on them?saturation?Nice and warm,they have a bit of texture to them.
Yeah i really like that one,that’s my favourite one from you so far.
I can hear you have nice bass in it too but imo it would benefit a lot from having a decaying deep sub underneath to compliment the drums esoecially during the quiet sections.
Have you ever considered microtonal scales in your music?
1 Like