Loudness Penalty

[Glammerocity]

Not everybody is aware that upload sites such as YouTube, Amazon, Spotify and iTunes will normalise your audio to maintain a consistent loudness across their sites. Each site sets different levels. I was mixing with my LUFS meter for YouTube, which normalises to -14dB, but I was worrying too much about trying to get each section of a song perfect, so I went back to mixing as I liked, then I check the loudness on loudnesspenalty.com and adjust the mixed file. It's better to do it before they do, so you know what you're getting.

[hariossa]

I started doing that for a while and then just stopped, Spotify only applies normalization on their mobile app and even there the user can turn normalization off. Limiting the loudness of your music because of "rules" created by platforms that may not last for ever is not what I want to do, I rather make my songs sound the best they can.

[Glammerocity]

On 4/8/2022 at 5:53 PM, hariossa said:

I started doing that for a while and then just stopped, Spotify only applies normalization on their mobile app and even there the user can turn normalization off. Limiting the loudness of your music because of "rules" created by platforms that may not last for ever is not what I want to do, I rather make my songs sound the best they can.

 

I stopped doing it, too. I still check it to make sure the balance is ok with a reduction but I've only found one old video I thought had been affected adversely, with a section that suddenly went quieter. I can only speak for YouTube but if you download a video, it's the same as upload. The normalisation is applied while a video is playing, so if they change the limit, it won't affect legacy videos differently. And I noticed that professional music videos are actually ramping up the loudness compared to older MVs.

 

 

This is the audio from Robert Palmer's official video for Johnny and Mary vs a recent Taylor Swift upload.

 

Edited April 10, 2022 by Glammerocity

[hariossa]

Yes, you have to take on account that recording techniques have changed a lot in the last thirty or forty years, and it is still changing. There are some people breaking the old established rules right now and creating new ones to achieve better results with the new technology.

There are less and less people who record using analog equipment, most of the music now is done by lone "producers" at home with only a laptop and an audio interface so there is no point on keeping your recording/mixing/mastering process inside the borders of analog techniques (keeping your tracks under -18dB is an example).

The whole negative thing about the loudness wars is that with old techniques the more you limit your master in order to achieve a louder sound the more you kill the song, in the end it sounds squashed, but with modern techniques you can achieve louder masters without sacrificing the song. The thing is, in order to get there you have to change your whole mixing/mastering process.

 

This is a long video but worth watching if you want to learn what are the latest ways of achieving loudness without killing your music:

 

 

Edited April 9, 2022 by hariossa

[Glammerocity]

On 4/9/2022 at 10:35 PM, hariossa said:

This is a long video but worth watching if you want to learn what are the latest ways of achieving loudness without killing your music:

And there's a part two. I started reading his doc instead, where he says he didn't know anybody who did what he was doing, treating each track rather than the master. I'm rather chuffed that it's what I've done for a long time. It was born out of my old analogue studio days, when we only had two stereo compressor/limiters, so at most 4 tracks in the mix, which necessitated recording to tape with compression and keeping the hardware for vocals in the mix. It also helped counter the limitations of 1/2" tape for 16 tracks to squeeze on more signal. I will still apply a touch of compression or limiter to a master now but by then it's a very subtle addition, barely stroking the signal.

 

I posted this elsewhere recently but it might be saying some of the same things in a truncated form (I've just started with Baphometrix's doc.)

 

 

Edited April 11, 2022 by Glammerocity