After doing some research, I learned about how most of the streaming services use some kind of normalization. I mostly post my music to Youtube, which normalizes (supposedly) all audio to -13 LUFS. RIP compression
Anyway, my music is super compressed and after measuring with a LUFS meter, many of my tracks are around -8 LUFS. One track is -6 LUFS (Please forgive me).
Recently, I've tried mastering more quietly, and I can sort of see the effect of that on uploaded videos. However, I am still pretty confused about it and I have a few questions:
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Is it real? I'm scared of mastering really quietly, and then Youtube taking the track, and not normalising it until a few weeks after it's been uploaded (or just not normalizing the video at all). Is the normalization confirmed? More importantly, is the normalization done properly? Will my music sound better if I master it to a slightly higher LUFS than -13, or if I make the LUFS level really low so it gets boosted a lot?
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What if I want my music to sound a bit compressed? Does that mean that music which relies on some compression is taking a hit? Even worse, music that isn't even compressed that much, but is more "dense", won't those tracks be affected too? Sorry if I'm wrong, but isn't this loudness normalization favouring more minimal tracks with less elements? I know a lot of people hate this, but I usually finish my mastering chain before I finish the whole track - that way I know how the end product will sound. My music sort of relies on this compression to get the kick to "glue" with the rest of the mix
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When I'm providing a download for my music, should I use a different, louder master? Does that mean I have to make two different mixes for streaming and for downloading if I want the very best listening experience on both platforms?
Thanks in advance! :)
Submitted January 03, 2017 at 10:28PM by ApostropheShy https://www.reddit.com/r/edmproduction/comments/5lw2ds/youtube_loudness_normalization/?utm_source=ifttt