I just found this article, lots of good info: https://www.diyvideostudio.com/youtube-loudness-standard/

From the article:
Quote:
"Content Loudness: Positive values means your audio is too loud. Negative values means your audio is too quiet."

"A little over or a little under is OK."

"If your audio is too quiet youtube does not touch the volume of your video. If the audio is too loud youtube lowers your volume."


I shoot for a little under and use the YouLean LUFS meter free plugin in my master channel of my DAW (Reaper). https://youlean.co/youlean-loudness-meter/

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).



Frank

Some tunes from me and my collaborator: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCvGqM6ktMW5ltTnyit1KWPg/videos


Band-in-a-Box Ultrapak 2019, Windows 11, Reaper, Behringer u-phoria UMC404HD, Kali LP-8