David,

Just recently I found out a little more about LUFS...

According to sound enthusiasts and sound engineers on the 'net, these days it seems that Youtube, iTunes, Spotify are making use of LUFS when it comes to processing audio uploads. The values give are usually in the vicinity of

  • Youtube = -14 LUFS
  • Spotify = -12 LUFS
  • iTunes = -16 LUFS

While -23 LUFS is the level agreed on for radio broadcasting, for user audio preparation, the rule of thumb is that the value with the greatest negative magnitude will have most dynamics and the value with the lowest negative magnitude will have a more compressed/limited sound (i.e. -16 LUFS will offer more dynamics in the performance than -10 LUFS). This is additional to any compression or limiting that is present in the pre-LUFS-adjusted track.

The below article offers some insight into various settings.

https://www.logicprohelp.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=124442

The good news is that it's not necessary to understand how LUFS works to be able to use it. All that is required is to...

  • Determine what suitable LUFS value the audio should be adjusted to (e.g -14).

  • Adjust it to that value.

  • It is not necessary to adjust a track to the broadcast value of -23. Should a track be picked up for broadcasting, the studio will adjust the track's level accordingly.

When using Soundcloud (which doesn't seem to optimise uploaded audios), if all tracks are adjusted to near the same LUFS value, the tracks will sound relatively uniform. Thus, as a listener plays through the tracks, they will not need to adjust the volume control excessively.

Regards,
Noel



MY SONGS...
Audiophile BIAB 2024