Mastering Levels for Streaming Services / LUFS metering scale

In this video we will discuss various practices to ensure your music sounds good on streaming services.

We will discuss the LUFS metering scale, what its is, why it’s important and how to use it.

LUFS stands for loudness units relative to full scale and was initially brought in for use in the broadcasting industry to measure and control levels in shows and commercials. This is also referred to as loudness normalisation and is now being adopted by various streaming services such as iTunes and Spotify. iTunes are currently using a standard of -16LUFS with Spotify using -14 LUFS. So to answer your question “Why is that relevant and how do I measure it” I will show a free metering plugin that you can use to measure it.

Lesson key points:
0:12 – Introduction
0:22 – What is LUFS, why is it relevant?
0:57 – Introducing an LUFS metering plugin
2:12 – Setting limiting for LUFS standards
3:41 – Comparing meters
4:30 – True Peak Metering
5:13 – Why this matters