Hi my reference tracks some of them are at -6 or -7 LUFS

what are the disadvantages these days of releasing music at this range?

edit: i want to mention a successful song of last year or 2 years ago i think reaches -6lufs

 

Last edited: Aug 24, 2022

if your client plan on releasing it on popular streaming platform you're probably gonna end up with a quiter results

 

https://www.edmprod.com/lufs/

https://www.provideocoalition.com/how-many-lufs-for-ideal-audio-loudness-why-cant-we-be-friends/

 

EDIT:
How to Master for Streaming Platforms: Normalization, LUFS, and Loudness
www.izotope.com/en/learn/mastering-for-streaming-platforms.html

 

Last edited: Aug 24, 2022

-7 is incredibly loud. See also https://productionadvice.co.uk/how-loud/ . Also, dynamics = more likely to get an award

 

this was one of the best songs last year and it goes to -6LUFS easy, i like its sound

 

The articles droplet posted reminded me of a very important thing: always upload lossless 24-bit or 32-bit audio file - WAV or FLAC if supported, because they will compress it into MP3 or AAC no matter what. Simply put transcoding/recompressing MP3 to MP3, or MP3 to AAC, or AAC to MP3 will sound double awful.

 

No, you do not cater to the -14 LUFSi guideline. The track will sound weak facing the competition. The industry or the big studios often have intersample clips. Get the best result possible at the loudness you desire.

Better to have a penalty for excess of volume than Spotify trying to use its own "mastering" chain on your track

 

If there would be a massive disadvantage for the broader audience, the pros in the industries wouldn't do it. They know that most people nowadays, younger listeners, interpret a heavily compressed sound as professional sound.

But on the other hand, your track must be produced and even composed right to still sound good under such low dynamic range. So if your Track doesn't have this right, it will sound like squashed crap at low dynamic ranges.

 

yes i actually noticed mine is just a block of brick while others at this LUFS at least still have some peaks and valleys here and there..do you know, its mostly because of arrangement i guess? or better compression usage? i didn't use compression during mixing

 

If it sounds good what's the problem.

 

loudness wars. They prefer control over the entire process.

 

Then it's perfectly fine.
The question is, would it sound "better" with more dynamic range and the answer is probably no. There is still this common misconception that because some platforms will normalize the loudness to -n LUFS, tracks should be mastered to -n LUFS. However, this is nonsense. Tracks like the linked one above most likely won't work anymore. They will lose their compact, tight sound.

But...

...of course the track should be mixed right before thinking about mastering. Not every mix can be mastered to -6 LUFS and still sound good instead of just squashed.

 

I mean, I don't know how your song sounds, maybe it just isn't made for such a low lufs. Look at the track you posted and analyze it! There are few elements, the bass is relatively even, which is a good foundation. The vocals are for sure compressed and lay on top of the whole mix, the drums don't have much impact/ transients, which perhaps is also because of compression.

 

The thing is, if you want your track to be competitive with the others you have to make sure the density you are providing with the loudness increase is "justified". Are you simply using saturation on one or two channels to increase even or odd harmonics ? Do you saturate slightly the Side of your mix so you get an interesting stereo image at the cost of some distortion on "un-behaving transients" ? Do you tame high frequency harshness/sibilance so when your mix gets added per say 10-15 dB of gain, ask yourself this question: Could it handle it ? Is your mid-range living and not smeary/blurry ?

When mastering, you are building a house brick by brick. When shooting for a specific loudness range, ask yourself this question: Is my mix solid first ? Because at the end it will all comes to the final mix version. Also A/B when in doubt at same level on a very short loop (for exemple 1 or 2 seconds loop on a kick/snare to check if the clipper/limiter is making transients over-react and adjust to taste).

Some people will say the loudness comes in the mix and they're quite right. The arrangement, composition and mix all play a crucial role. Some producers go for a "modern" sound and use clippers/limiters on all of their sub-groups/sub-mixes (a slight hard-clip on everything BUT bass comes to my mind).

 

Last edited: Aug 24, 2022

I got a nice trick for you that I use every time. I make two masters, one with low lufs and one with higehr lufs, (from my perception if it sounds good, not numbers)
Then I import them in Cubase 12 which can normalize to Lufs and I normalize them pretty low (-23 Lufs) and then I listen to them
alternately in solo. This really helps to notice what you actually maybe destroyed with too much mastering compression/limiting. And based on that, you can rethink if your track sounds good or if it lost something.

 

A reduced crest factor resulting in a lack of punch for the kick (due to an RMS excursion on the speaker cone) and a heavily restricted dynamic range which sounds increasingly worse the lower the listening volume.

 

You can also flip the phase on one channel (as an exemple we take the Left channel of your track) and then sum your mix to mono.
And then listen for odd peaks/distortion.
You can prep your mastering session with Izotope RX and look for clicks , phase rotation issues and adress the mixing guy to check those bits again.

 

man where did u learn mixing/mastering from? any recommendation best tutorial you watched or something...u seem to know ur stuff

 

Thank you for the professsional help @boomoperators, I corrected my post - you can remove the dislike again.