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Spotify just reduced its loudness playback level !
The post title says it all – in the last few days it’s become clear that Spotify have chosen to reduce their playback loudness reference level from approximately -11 LUFS down to approximately -14,...
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The Foo Fighters just proved me right about loudness – and dynamics
Foo Fighters just released a surprise new single, “Run” – and the biggest surprise to me is that it has great dynamics. All their recent releases have been pushed really hard, in the loudness...
View ArticleThe surprisingly simple hack to make your music POP online – and everywhere...
This video shows a surprisingly simple technique to make your music stand out online – even in an aggressive genre like EDM. The trick is easy, the video includes a real-world example to prove that...
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How loud ? The simple solution to optimizing playback volume online
I get asked this question literally every day, now. And I see people asking it, everywhere: “What’s the ideal loudness for my music to get the best playback volume online ?” Because people have...
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YouTube reveals EXACT volume normalization values – find out how to see them
Are you confused about exactly what YouTube’s playback volume normalization is doing to your music ? Maybe you understand the basic idea but struggle to predict exactly what will happen when videos...
View ArticleTIDAL upgrade their loudness normalization – and enable it by default
Developments in loudness normalization are coming thick and fast, these days – and TIDAL just raised the bar. Quality has always been one of the major selling-points of TIDAL’s streaming service –...
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Humans versus Robot Mastering: Updated
IMPORTANT UPDATE: I messed up. In the original post and graphic below, I said that the results were almost certainly influenced by the comments on Facebook. But I had no idea by how much. Since then,...
View ArticleJ Cole WINS – with dynamics !
J Cole’s new album KOD just won the Dynamic Range Day Award 2018. (The award is given every year to a great-sounding, successful album that also has great dynamics) And it’s the most streamed album...
View ArticleIntroducing Loudness Penalty
The number one question I get asked these days is How loud will my music be played back online ? And the answer is always – “it depends”. Until now. I’m proud and excited to be able to announce a...
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Mastering for Spotify ? NO ! (or: Streaming playback levels are NOT targets)
So, most streaming services normalize their audio to around -14 LUFS. YouTube are slightly louder, iTunes is a couple of dB quieter, but overall -14 is the loudness you should aim for, right ? WRONG...
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Don’t push your music over the Loudness Cliff !
I’ve been talking about this image for years. Literally, I’d describe it in almost every conversation, interview or lecture when I talked about loudness. And it always got a great reaction. But it...
View ArticleLoudness Penalty – Live Loudness Preview
People are loving the Loudness Penalty website – but some of them have been saying Who cares what the numbers say ? The important thing is – how does it sound ? And of course we agree ! Which is why...
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Spotify upload specs recommend -2dB True Peak (for the loudest songs)
You’ve probably heard by now that Spotify recently announced it will soon be possible for anyone to upload directly to their streaming service, without going through an agregator like TuneCore or CD...
View ArticleIntroducing the Loudness Penalty plugin !
It’s been exactly a year since I announced the free Loudness Penalty website in collaboration with MeterPlugs – and people love it ! Literally every day now I see it being shared on social media,...
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Loudness Penalty Plugin – FAQ
The video above is a great, creative introduction by the popular “Snake Oil” YouTube channel, to my new plugin Loudness Penalty. It offers an excellent, entertaining overview of what the plugin...
View ArticleIs Billie Eilish too loud ? (Here come the Loudness Police)
I was recently tagged in a heated Facebook debate about whether the heavy distortion in Billie Eilish’s song “xanny” was deliberate artistic intent, or due to excessive compression & limiting in...
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Amazon Music Loudness Normalization Arrives
The title says it all, really ! Bill Koch emailed me yesterday to let me know that Amazon Music have recently added Loudness Normalization to their mobile and desktop apps. I’ve only had time to do...
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What’s going on with loudness normalization ?!?
Yesterday I posted on the MeterPlugs blog about the fact that YouTube had switched to using a -14 LUFS reference level, and why I thought that was a good thing. But today, it looks as if they’ve...
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Japanese streaming site Niconico adds loudness normalization
This is a guest post by David Shimamoto from Vocal-EDIT.com. David lives in Kyoto and is the author of the book “Talkback – stories of the digital studio”, the first book in Japanese to thoroughly...
View ArticleDoes the ‘Loudness Penalty’ really matter ?
The Loudness Penalty website has been one of the most successful projects I’ve ever worked on, and also one of the most controversial. We knew when we chose to include the word “Penalty” in the name...
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