[Paul Tucci]

Nate,

This sounds like a job for a detective. The YLM screenshot of the other song is a mere 10 seconds long. Not sure if that’s an issue here or not. I’ll go listen in on Spotify to both and see what you’re chasing.

PT

[Nate Dewart]

yes please detective, thanks! here’s the full screenshot of the reference track.

Such-Great-Heights-Reference-Full.pdf 191 KB PDF - Click to view

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[Nate Dewart]

hi @-PT curious if you found any clues on the cause of the volume discrepancy.

@dana – one clarifying follow up from our Q+A, you mentioned that for instagram you do -2.0 true peak to avoid distortion. spotify has this guideline as well for anything louder than -14 LUFS and tunecore distribution goes to instagram as well, so hence why i went for -2.0 true peak and seems like the way to go across the board, though on the one hand it avoids the distortion, on the other hand it might not be as loud?

appreciate any further insights. may your close to the year be fulfilling!

nate

• This reply was modified 1 month ago by  Nate Dewart. Reason: quick clarification

[Dana Nielsen]

Hey, @nategomoon! Thanks man – holidays have been good; hope yours have been too!

The only reason for -2db or -1db true peak is to protect the sound quality once your master is transcoded to one of the shitty– err, I mean “lossy”– compression formats we all listen to most of the time. This is especially noticeable when listening on the free or ad-supported tiers of various DSPs, as well as all social media feeds.

Lemme explain… That super loud -0.01 dBTP master will sound awesome when played back in a lossless format like Wav or FLAC, and it’ll probably also sound pretty damn good as a high quality mp3 or Ogg Vorbis on the paid versions of Spotify and Youtube. But if you’re listening on a free tier (or on any social media platform) you ain’t gettin top shelf audio! They serve freeloaders the “well” spirits … a weak 2.5kbps shot of rum mixed with flat lukewarm Diet-Codec served in a Variable Bit Rate Dixie Cup… with no ice!

Suffice it to say, super loud mixes mastered to the the bleeding edge of -0.01dBTP often sound distorted once transcoded to lossy formats with lots of data compression.

One indispensable tool in my plug-in arsenal that helps me get ahead of this guessing game is ADPTR Streamliner. (And, wow– it’s on sale right now for $39! That’s a steal.) It’s a really cool plugin that let’s you hear in real-time what your song will sound like on ANY tier of ANY platform — it’s like hearing into the future!

It really is eye-opening (ear-opening?) to poke around, auditioning all the different codecs. And you can even click the “Artifacts” button to hear ONLY the residual artifacts. If you’re a fan of submerging your head underwater while crinkling aluminum foil as close to your eardrums as possible you are going to LOVE the Artifacts button! 🔊🥴

plugin-alliance.com

ADPTR AUDIO Streamliner

NEW VERSION 1.1 - Codec auditioning, automatic level matching, and state-of-the-art loudness and dynamics metering to get the perfect master for all major streaming services.

[Paul Tucci]

Nate,

Haven’t forgotten you. My curiosity has led me to some new-to-me info that I’m digesting before I nail the answer to your dilemnaa. A couple things seem obvious so far. Those with deep experience in record making don’t pay much attention to the LUFS. It’s like the plumber who can diagnose the problem and fix it in 15 but charges a couple hundred for the knowledge. Better yet, the analogy of Picasso pulling out a blank canvas and making a minimalist masterpiece in seconds because of all his previous work completed, having technique down cold, and then… intent. Those of us stumbling around in LUFS land currently will one day get it. So sayeth the alread -knowers.

I’m also thinking it’s possible to cheat the loudness numbers to make the Integrated number lower so as not to have the song turned down by the streamers. Because that Integrated number is averaged over the entire song, any EXTENDED sections that are above the threshold level of the noise gate will be included in the overall measurement and thereby “dilute” the time weighting of the loudest sections. Your reference track (Greater Heights) Integrated LUFS number was diluted by 2dB according to my experiment….I deleted the quiet intro and outro to that song and low and behold, the Integrated LUFS level jumped up by 2. This MAY be why you heard your track lower in comparison. If we’re only listening to which is the louder thing we hear and dismissing the quiet bits, we might could get fooled.

I’m not committing to that quite yet but am enjoying the exploration.

PT

[Michael Leto]

Hi Nate! From my limited (haha) understanding, I’m pretty sure most ME’s don’t stop mastering once it hits -14 LUFS, they stop way after that. This article helped me understand it! This is also why I usually get the client to hire a dedicated ME, they’re way smarter about this than me.

https://www.mixinglessons.com/lufs-loudness-unit-full-scale/#:~:text=Remember%2C%20you%20shouldn't%20just,But%20that's%20OK!

mixinglessons.com

LUFS: How loud to master songs for streaming (& why it's not -14 LUFS)

Learn how to use LUFS metering in your mastering sessions and discover what LUFS value you should master to for the best results

[Nate Dewart]

2025 salute and thank you @michael @dana and @-PT appreciate the deep dives all around here! feeling much more equipped. grateful!

[Dana Nielsen]

Woo-wooooo! 🎉 So glad to help, man!