Spotify Mastering: Understanding LUFS and True Peak Requirements

For Spotify mastering, aim for negative 14 LUFS, with a true peak of negative 2, to avoid penalization and ensure consistent sound quality.

### Spotify Mastering Guidelines: LUFS, True Peak, and Sample Rate
* 🔊 Spotify recommends a target loudness of "**-14 LUFS**" for streaming, but it's not mandatory. If you choose to go louder, ensure you set the "**True Peak**" to "**-2**" to prevent peaks above the ceiling.
* 🎚 The artist "mixed their album" to average around **"-8 to -7 LUFS,"** with some tracks hitting the **low sixes** and occasionally going down to **"-14."**
* 🎯 When mastering above "**-14 LUFS**," Spotify's "**-2 True Peak**" guideline helps prevent peak level issues during format conversions.
* 🔒 It's better to "limit the True Peak" than to exceed it, as it ensures the audio remains within the **set ceiling**.
* 🎧 The artist used a similar "**master chain for every track**," adding a "**Pro L2 limiter**" as the last plugin and setting the "**True Peak**" to "**-2**."
* 🎵 When working at "**48k or 96k**" and "**32-bit**", it's advisable to "**dither down to 24-bit**" and "**set the sample rate to 44.1**" before delivering to Spotify to avoid conversion steps.

mastering for Spotify. Let's talk about it for a minute. A lot of people ask me, What LUFS should I send my mixes off to to go on streaming? How loud should I make my mixes? What LUFS should I do? Negative 14 LUFS? Or should I do lower than negative 14? Or higher than negative 14? What software do I use to measure LUFS? What if I submit a mix that's negative 7 LUFS or negative 10 LUFS? What should I set my true peak to? I will tell you guys, I finished my album and it's mastered and ready to be delivered. I'm just waiting on the cover art. I decided after thinking about this a lot and trying a lot of different things that negative 14 LUFS is generally for the style of music I do and what I'm going for. It's not for me. All love to every engineer who decides to do a negative 14 LUFS. I found that for what I'm going for, that's not for me.

because i tend to like to distort my drums, I tend to like to do things that lufs will penalize. To answer the question, if you submit a mix that's louder than negative 14 lufs or whatever that streaming site defaults to, if you do that, the reality is you are going to be turned down and penalized by that streaming site. So here's something that is not out there. It's hard to find this information, but I was searching on Spotify's website or some document that Spotify put out, and what they said is their target is negative 14 lufs. If you choose to mix louder than negative 14 lufs, here's what you need to do: make sure that if you mix louder than negative 14 lufs, that you leave a headroom of negative two true peak. I mixed my album. The album's called What's Your Superpower. I decided that when I went to master it, it averages between negative eight and negative seven lufs every track. Sometimes it hits the

low sixes. Sometimes it'll go down to negative 14 or whatever, but short term, it's going around negative 7, negative 8. That's the range. Sometimes negative 8.5, sometimes negative 6.8, you know, but it's in that range most of the time. So I finished it, and I set the ceiling to negative point three true peak, but then I learned that it should be negative two true peak. So what I did was I went to all the masters, and I set the true peak at negative two. So Spotify themselves said this: if you mix louder than negative 14 LUFS, if you decide to do that, that's fine, just make sure you leave true peak at negative two. The reason behind that is because when they convert your files to other formats, for example, to OGG format, what tends to happen is when you have a loud mix, peaks tend to rise in volume. True peak sets the threshold at negative two. So when they do that conversion to OGG, you'll be ensured that no spikes will

hit above the ceiling. Like I said, I went in on every track, and I set the true peak to negative two because everything is louder than negative 14. In summary, if people tell you you have to mix at negative 14, it's absolute nonsense. You don't have to mix at negative 14 LUFS. If you do, you won't be turned down. But I want to tell you guys some theory around this. If you decide to mix at negative 14 LUFS for streaming formats, here's the problem. You might start to sacrifice the sound you want to go for. I just mix with my ears and what sounds good to me. And when I do negative 14, it's like technically right, but it doesn't sound right to me. It sounds very clinically right and dynamic range and all that, but sometimes that's not what I'm trying to go for because I'm an artist, and I like to do it the way that I want to do it. I'd like to distort it the way I want to.

and all those are penalized by lufs. So I think that there's a balancing act. And any engineers chime in and let me know your thoughts about this. Here's the thing, if you set it to negative two true peak, Spotify will compensate for that. Yes, I did use a similar master chain for every track. So let me show you guys in practice what I did. Okay, I'm gonna load up a drum loop from volume nine. I did was I threw a Pro L2 as the last plug-in on the master chain for everything on what's your superpower album. I'm just adding a limiter. I'm adding some gain just because no reason in particular. What I did was I set the oversampling to 8x. True peak limiting is on. Dither was always set to 24 bit because for delivery, you can't submit 32-bit audio to streaming services. So here's what I did in order to get negative two true peak no matter what my limiter was hitting at, no matter what the

compressors, or whatever we're hitting at. [Music] Here you can see your short-term LUFS loudness. So we can see we're hitting around negative 10, negative 9, negative 10. That's our LUFS. So since it's louder than negative 14, what you want to do is go out, click, and turn this down to negative 2. And so now when I play it back. [Music] If you look at our meter in Ableton, you see that it's maxing out at negative two. So that's exactly how I do it. Sometimes I work at 48k or 96k. If you work at 48 or 96k and 32-bit when you mix down, you want to dither down to 24-bit, and you also want to set your sample rate to 44.1 when you're mixing down. And if you work in Ableton, it's very clean. If you have a bunch of tracks to do it once, you can either go into Ableton and do each one or

you can go into something like RX8. You can do the whole batch, so I wanted to show you guys that because that's something I learned about Spotify. Spotify themselves said if you mix louder than negative 14 lower the true peak two decibels, so it's negative two. True peak limiting vapor crew is better to be turned down than turned up. I agree. Here's the other thing I learned, and I didn't know this before. If you send Spotify a 48k audio file 48k 24, they will accept it, but they will do a conversion to 44.1 24. To avoid that conversion step, that's why I showed you guys this batch processing tool. So if you're working in 48k, you want to use something like RX 8 or Ableton sample rate conversion before it hits Spotify. Just a couple tips for Spotify.

Here's a tip to sound your best on Spotify 🎼👍

DECAP

Mastering for Spotify: Understanding LUFS and True Peak

Spotify's recommended LUFS for streaming is -14, and exceeding this can result in being penalized.

Mixing louder than -14 LUFS requires a true peak of -2 to avoid penalization.

The artist's album, "What's Your Superpower," was mastered to average between -8 and -7 LUFS, with consideration for the impact on streaming.

The Importance of Setting True Peak at Negative Two

Setting true peak at negative two is crucial when mixing music for streaming, according to Spotify's recommendations.

Despite the common advice to mix at negative 14 LUFS, deviating from this guideline can preserve the desired sound and prevent volume spikes during file conversion.

Ultimately, mixing based on personal preference and artistic vision, rather than strict technical standards, is important for the individuality of the artist's work.

Balancing Audio Levels and Mastering for Streaming

Setting true peak to negative two helps Spotify's compensation and ensures consistent audio levels.

Using a similar master chain for every track on the "What's Your Superpower" album, including Pro L2 limiter and 8x oversampling.

Dithering down to 24-bit and adjusting sample rate to 44.

1 for mixing down allows for clean audio on streaming services.

Spotify recommends keeping the true peak level at or below -2 decibels when mixing.

Sending a 48k audio file to Spotify will result in a conversion to 44.

1, which can be avoided by using a batch processing tool for sample rate conversion.

It's advisable to use software like RX 8 or Ableton for sample rate conversion before uploading 48k audio to Spotify.