I have a group of musicians that I periodically send my bass overlay recordings to and going forward, I want to standardize the loudness of my mixdowns. I’m exploring the new options in Studio One and fwiw I’ve selected the Streaming option with the Adjust Loudness box checked. I use M4A format.

I have several other loudness options available including EBU R128, AES Streaming, Public Radio -USA and many others.

The default for the Streaming option is -14.0 LUFS +/- 0.0 dB with a Max True Peak of -1.0 dB.

I don’t want to make any changes in my DAW regarding volume automation, the mix is where I want it to be. This is an export issue.

Now when I play back my mixdown using Windows Media Player with the Windows loudness control set to 50% the resulting volume of my mixdown is way too loud; to the point where it might be uncomfortable for someone using headphones. I was actually surprised by this.

There are a number of ways I could solve this problem but I thought I’d ask if there is a best way to standardize on loudness settings.

Is there a loudness standard for this sort of thing?

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BiaB 2025 Windows
For me there’s no better place in the band than to have one leg in the harmony world and the other in the percussive. Thank you Paul Tutmarc and Leo Fender.