Do streaming services care about overall true peak or just parts?

January 30, 2019 9:46 AM

Mastering audio: do streaming services like Spotify measure overall true peak of an entire song, or only at loudest points? Should I worry about songs getting clipped?

I'm new to mastering (Logic X Pro) and want to put my songs on Bandcamp and Spotify.

Spotify's FAQ page specifies "that the -2 dBTP recommendation only applies to material mastered louder than -14 LUFS. If your material measures -14 LUFS or lower, the True Peak recommendation is -1 dBTP"

But as far as True Peak goes.... I have a track that is -2dBTP almost all the way through... except for a couple of drum hits that go to -0.4dBTP. You can see them spiking here:

https://imgur.com/a/ji35b8k

My question is, does Spotify's requirement refer to the song overall, or only the very highest points (drum hits)? I just don't want to go through the trouble of getting a distributor to get songs on Spotify only to have their normalization make those drum hits sound clipped.

FWIW, all my songs are around 13-16 LUFS and as of right now, none are above -2 dBTP. So that sounds pretty safe?

Would love an explanation that a lay person like me would understand. Thank you!

posted by deern the headlice to Technology (4 answers total)

Those spikes look dangerous regardless. Any reason your not adding some compression to even out the spikes?
posted by bitdamaged at 10:17 AM on January 30, 2019

Response by poster: Hmm, I've been hearing that a lot of people don't use much compression in mastering and didn't want to overdo it... I could try though.
posted by deern the headlice at 10:37 AM on January 30, 2019

I don't know the answer to the question about streaming services -- I'll be watching with interest.

I would suggest, though, that unless it's musically important that those drum hits be a lot louder than everything else (possible, but unusual), you should probably revisit your mix and bring them down in volume if that's possible at this point. Then, you don't have to use compression in the mastering stage, which should be done with GREAT caution and probably lots of experience.

Your whole track will sound better that way. If you don't, everything's going to be very quiet in the context of a Spotify session. Again, this is only if it's not musically important that those hits are loud. Sorry if this is super obvious!
posted by nosila at 1:27 PM on January 30, 2019

Response by poster: I will try to fix this in the mix, although my ears don't actually here the drum hits being that much louder than the song, definitely not as much as the waveform indicates.

But in any case - does anyone know if it's just the peaks I should be measuring against Spotify's recommendations vs the LUFS/dbTP of the song?
posted by deern the headlice at 2:57 PM on January 30, 2019