Loudness Problem on Spotify?

[Jonah GognyParticipant]

Hey there!

 

I was very surprised as I listened to a playlist contaning my own music to realize that my music wasn't as loud as that of others on the playlist! Now I understand that different mastering engineers might master their tracks at different levels, but shouldn't Spotify normalize everything to have everything at -14 LUFS? -14 LUFS is the level I was targeting during the master... Does anyone have any ideas as to why this might be happening? Here is a link to the playlist for you to see for yourselves... The band has two tracks in the playlist (both of which are credited to "Ometeotl").

https://open.spotify.com/playlist/1K93rMYL7eRtPhOLTwZzTi

Thanks for your insights!

Jonah.

[Malcolm MiddletonParticipant]

Do you use the Meterplugs Loudness Penalty plugin? I use it and it's very good for hitting all the different platforms levels. Gives me peace of mind that I've got it bang on!

[Jonah GognyParticipant]

Hey Malcolm! Thanks a lot for your reply! I've never heard of the plugon you're taliking about. Yet, as I was rather nervous on this issue, I've submitted it also to the Facebook group, and it seemed someone had a very satisfactoty explanation, which you'd be happy to know if you don't already : Spotify doesn't actually normalize its tracks in ALL contexts, but only in the event of a listener using their mobile app or desktop app : the problem here isn't actually in the master, it's just that the other tracks are mastered louder, and that Spotify ISN'T normalizing because it's a web brower window... So, for Spotify web users, the loudness war is still going on!

 

Cheers! I'll check out Meterplaugs Loudness Penalty!

Jonah.

[Donald MacTavishParticipant]

Hi Jonah,

There is a free online version of the Loudness Penalty Analyzer (LPA) at https://www.loudnesspenalty.com/#

I have been analyzing tracks on Spotify and the differences between tracks on the Web version is all over the place.  The info of FB is correct in regards to normalization.  Have some fun and drop some commercial tracks into the LPA and see the differences. I also suggest getting the free version of Youlean Loudness Meter.  Fantastic to understand loudness in tracks. A basic mastering staring point to get a good "loud" master is: Never go over -1.0 dBFS True Peak and target your master between -10 and -12 LUFS.  This is just a suggested target.

Prost

[Author]

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