1 - In youtube you can right click a video and select "stats for nerds" and see if the volume of a video was changed by youtube. You want to look at the line "Volume/Normalized", the first % is how high you have the video volume slider, the second % is how loud the video is playing. If the second % is lower than the first % then youtube has reduced the volume.
Didn't know you could do that, thanks! I just checked our latest video, shows Volume/Normalized at 100%/100%. After that however it says "content loudness -6.3 db", do you know what that means?
I'm not sure. I'd guess you are that much under the limit before youtube starts reducing your volume... but that's just a guess.
I shoot for -15 to -16 LUFS on my mixes and it works out well for both youtube and facebook. Note that you need to run through the entire track to get the LUFS reading as it is an average of the whole track which is also what youtube does.
I like that youtube does this so one does not have to participate in the "loudness wars". As a result we can make our music much more dynamic.
Here is a recent example of one of my videos that the stats for nerds is at -1.1 db. I considered that very close to optimal (optimal being 0.0).
I always shoot for -14 LUFS here because that’s what Spotify seems to like the best, with peaks of -1. And yes, I run through the entire track. Using Ozone 9 to do that.
That -6.3 stat seems odd, unless the software my partner used to create the video did something to the audio file I sent her, I’ll need to check on that.
EDIT: Just checked the same song with the loudness penalty analyzer and it showed 0.0 for youtube (-.09 for spotify).
I stay with +1 to -1db for Spotify on the loudness penalty site. For me that can be 13-15 LUFS depending on the dynamics of the particular song.
Some of the user forum posts are extremely loud. That was all the rage a while back but nowadays it’s annoying and actually dangerous for what’s left of my ears.
Bud
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This is extremely interesting. Thanks. I will use it as an extra tool. I have a loudness analyzer/fixer from Waves, but this is a great double check.
I don't really care about loudness that much--I am into dynamic range. I like a .wav that looks like wave, not a 2 x 4 as Bud said. If I don't get a LUFS of about -18 and a DR of say 11 or 12 I am not happy.
I used "Start Me Up" by the Rolling Stones as a mastering reference on the last track I posted here (All Love Matters) and the DR on that song is astonishing--I think it was like 14 or something, and it wasn't that loud. But it is one of the most iconic rock mixes of all time.
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Band-in-a-Box 2026 Video: The Newly Designed Piano Roll Window
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Band-in-a-Box 2026 Video: AI Stems & Notes - split polyphonic audio into instruments and transcribe
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