Originally Posted by Janice & Bud
My experience has been that 14 LUFS is very quiet for SoudCloud.
They are apparently one of the few platforms that make no adjustments to what you upload.

I'm a big fan of loundnesspenalty.com - free and no signup required and very fast.
It only takes a few seconds to see how and if your song will be altered by the platforms.
I use this as a basis for all my mastering.

A LOT of the forum songs would require huge changes by the platforms as many are very loud.
And the changes made my the platforms can introduce artifacts IMHO.

You can check it out here at this safe link.
https://www.loudnesspenalty.com
Thanks Bud - excuse my questions in ignorance - I've only learned of LUFS existence due to Noel's thread and still learning DAW and mixing stuff as I go. I had wondered why my songs posted had different volumes on different sites.
Do you aim for a LUFS target before checking with loudnesspenalty.com, or do you go by experience and feel and then just check it with loudnesspenalty.com before posting?
If it's too loud, do you use a limiter on your master track final mix? If you do target LUFS, is it the 'integrated' measure, or do you use short range measure for the peak section of the track?
Andrew

Regards,
Andrew D
Adelaide, Sth Aust
Soundcloud: https://on.soundcloud.com/SQE4btVvNVkLq74e9
Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@andrewoftheantipodes