Like most streaming platforms, Spotify normalizes it’s music so that songs generally playback at the same perceived loudness. It is not as simple as raising or lowering the tracks integrated LUFS to meet the platforms LUFS however. Still some songs are louder than others, and it all comes down to how it’s mixed and mastered. A man came up with a formula to approximate the playback level of songs using Ian Shepards Dynameter plugin:http://productionadvice.co.uk/spotify-loudness-formula/ The formula is: PSR - PLR - 8 = Playback LUFS on Spotify.
I’ve been testing this formula with many hit songs as well as a few of my own, and it does a pretty good job as you can see in this spreadsheet I’ve made: http://i.imgur.com/UU2kZ1g.png There are some flaws with the formula though. For example, the yellow labeled rows on the spreadsheet show a Martin Garrix track, and a track that I made, both which hold the same PSR & PLR values, and are mastered to the same LUFS, but the Garrix track is streamed 2.4 db louder than mine. This gives me reason to assume that Spotify’s normalization algorithm takes into account other factors which are currently unknown (to me). I’d personally say this formula is most useful in letting you know if your track is likely to be streamed far below standard playback level but still, you must take this estimation with a grain of salt. I hope this information benefits some you you.
Explanation of Spreadsheet Columns:
PSR - short term dynamics.
PLR - long term dynamics.
Mastered LUFS - the measured LUFS after the songs Spotify waveform was normalized to 0db (LUFS was measured with Logic Pros Multimeter plugin).
Playback LUFS - the measured LUFS of the song while streamed directly from Spotify.
Formula LUFS - the value obtained by plugging in each songs PSR & PLR into the formula.
Submitted January 21, 2017 at 06:10PM by IHURLEN https://www.reddit.com/r/edmproduction/comments/5pcxbk/want_your_music_to_sound_the_best_it_can_on/?utm_source=ifttt
Javier Rodriguez
Saturday, January 21, 2017