Hi all,
I have a strange interesting question.Ive made a Disco song and have followed closely the style and production of "Dancing Queen" from ABBA.This included the final Mastered Wav which had a LUFS of 8.4 which and is what Dancing Queen had on CD.(I intend to do a youtube master of 13 Lufs also)
Two Things:
1:My Wav file Physically was smaller in width(about 8 to 10%) than the Dancing Queen wav even though the measurements were all the same.Why would that be?
2:As an experiment I did three Mastered wavs at different Maximizer values and the most compressed one was the same width as Dancing Queen at about 7.5 Lufs but sounded the best.Is this because the Genre Disco is more condusive to Compression? (because Disco is steady and more equal from start to finish)I heard the boys from ABBA saying they had to compress the hell out of Dancing Queen.
For instance I wouldnt be putting that much compression on any other songs Ive done.
I am not sure whether to go with the 8.4 level equal to Dancing Queen or go with the hotter slightly better sounding one is my delemma
Ps All the track levels and buss levels in the mixing were good and no clipping or red lights and enough headroom was left for mastering.Thanks for any ideas on that urs Hugh

You want opinions on which to use without us hearing them?
Only way I can think of to answer is to add more considerations.

Back when ABBA compressed this song there weren't any hard wall brick limiter digital compressors/limiters. So it was harder back then to get the numbers/results.

Nowadays, adjusting between the threshold (input and amount of compression) and limiter (top end) can make a lot of difference, turn one up and one down .. and then makeup gain can change all of the above results, so without data I'd say 'if it sounds good it is good', as long as you are in the safe limits.

Your question threw me; I immediately thought of wav 'file size' (not display) .. which should be pretty much the same for each.

Pushing a whole bunch of energy through the signal and then using the Limiter to get the Lufs level at the end may result in a mix with a smaller end signal display (being limited more).
I'd generally consider the larger wav display to have more dynamics and thus better if I had to look at them and decide, but like I said, use whichever one sounds better.

The CD version of Dancing Queen I have is 14 (streaming quality) LUFS and a respectable 11.5 in Dynamic Range.

It peaks at about -0.7 so it is not hot or over compressed by today's standards. It fact in has a pleasant sound. It is not a big monster fat .wav. but not skinny either, about what you would expect from that time period.

14 LUFS and 11.5 to 12 in DR are what you are aiming for today, no matter were you are peaking volume or amplification (headroom) wise. LUFS is not the same as volume, per se. It is something you have to google and study.

https://www.audiodraft.com/blog/audio-levels-101-all-you-need-is-lufs/

But basically, if you keep it below zero dB (start with headroom in your mix) and try and get 14 LUFS and 11-12 dynamic range you will sound good almost anywhere.

From your description (your file with the same LUFS is smaller in width than the original) I think the issue is your audio file is too compressed.

If the original audio is too compressed, the only way to reach a target LUFS of 14 (for example) is to reduce the amplitude of the entire track.

Watch this video (link originally provided by Tony) that demonstrates this in action.

Skip ahead to around 4:00 or so where he shows the two files and then later when he shows them with the same LUFS: https://youtu.be/n1Yfl6KGRk8

Thanks Dave and David for your links. Interesting reads/videos.

Hi Rharv and David,
Thanks for the answers.So I have now gone back and looked again and I notice a couple of things.I may not have been measuring the lufs correctly as I didnt take account of the input meter of Ozone when using their plugin "insight".So Im going to look at that again.
Also David I realize that I must have a different version of Dancing Queen and I went to youtube and found this interesting comparision of the versions from Vinyl to a 2010 release.I have the 2010 release im guessing as its compressed to the last and similar to the wav in this video
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ThTc0K49oVo
Thanks for the info guys.I will hopefully have it ready for upload asap and you can let me know what you think h

Hi Dave thanks great link and its interesting that he used EDM to demonstrate his point.The Dancing Queen wav display I have looks very similar to the over compressed wav he uses on the video at 4mins .I will now have a look at how compressed the mix is just in case I could get a better sounding version than the one I have
Hugh

Glad it helped.

This is why I always put the final meter(s) very last in the chain, even after I see the levels in Ozone (for instance).

I want to see how all the measurements interact in the end result.

If you use a separate meter system afterwards you see more of the Ozone end result.
Inside Ozone you see each effect .. but final meters shows what's happening at the very end, which can be different.

I get the LUFS concept, but I still want to see how that end result is affecting certain other aspects.

How close am I to zero, and how often?
How much dynamics do I have on a relative scale? During a given time frame and overall?
What's the Peak/Average ratio on the song?

Funny, but here, the RMS readings seem to correlate closely to LUFS in most real life tests. At least here (and kinda confirmed here):
http://productionadvice.co.uk/lufs-dbfs-rms/

One other thing to note, as mentioned in the video, LUFS is not really a mastering consideration, except to know how public standardized playback (TV,Streaming, etc) will alter the sound volume.

A CD or DVD likely has no LUFS effect. So if you want something louder/softer, you can. Depends on what you are mastering for. Songs do not get 'averaged' on CD.

I think of LUFS as a a broadcast spec more than a recording/mixing spec.
If I am wrong please tell me.