Do you LUFS ?

[Anders]

Hi,

Do you aim for a specific LUFS (or other term) in your taxi submissions in order to reach a competitive volume ?
I use Ozone 8 for mastering where I usually run the master assistant and I believe this always recommends a ”LUFS target” of -14db with a ceiling set to -1,0dB
Comparing volume of reference tracks this is always too quiet and I find myself targeting LUFS -11dB with a ceiling of -0,3dB to get close in volume.
Listening through Logic with my monitors or headphones it feels like I can get away with even harder limiting but from Soundcloud with cheaper speakers it quickly sounds very squashed.
I realize this depends a lot on what sort of track/genre your working on but it would be interesting to hear others comments on this ?

/Anders

[Len911]

Keeping in mind that most of the taxi material is probably going to be used on tv and film probably under dialog, I don't think you want a squashed sound at all! If the end user wants to further compress or increase the volume, etc, I don't think it's
wise to push it. But there's the other extreme of such low volume that someone needs to max out their amp just to hear it.

[ttully]

Hey Anders,

I did have 1 library that wanted stuff at a certain LUFS.......but I would usually push it a bit beyond what they wanted.
As far as Taxi submissions.....I usually make it as loud as the references.

But many times I don't even compare volume to the references...
I just push it in the Waves L2 limiter til it is showing some attenuation.
I only remember only 1 time when a library said a track was too loud.....reduced the limiter a bit....fixed!

My 2 cents,
Tim

[Anders]

Thanks Len911,

Keeping in mind that most of the taxi material is probably going to be used on tv and film probably under dialog, I don't think you want a squashed sound at all!

Sorry, my post was probably not very clear. I’ m certainly not trying to squash anything...what I’m trying to understand is how to make a track competitive volume wise without squashing it.


Thank you Tim,

I just push it in the Waves L2 limiter til it is showing some attenuation.

Sounds like a great workflow/routine there, I have not tried L2 limiter yet…
I almost always struggle finding the right balance of how much limiting to apply and it´s boring

I believe it can be a big disadvantage if a track is not right in volume, when screeners make their decision.

/Anders

[cosmicdolphin]

For the first couple of years I sent everything out with a nice healthy dynamic range ..somewhere between 8 - 12db on the TT dynamic range meter.

Early this year a Taxi Friendly Library said my tracks were mastered too quiet and I had to remaster and raise them by another 5db to get them in line with everybody else's tracks in the Library. Personally I think they sound worse but they are louder and now there is only around 6db of dynamic range.

Seems that the loudness war is still alive and well and you just have to play the game. I now master everything louder than I would like, I use Ozone as well and you can certainly move the limiter threshold to adust to a competeive loudness, just be care of clipping and use your ears.

[Unstar]

Hey Anders,

I did have 1 library that wanted stuff at a certain LUFS.......but I would usually push it a bit beyond what they wanted.
As far as Taxi submissions.....I usually make it as loud as the references.

But many times I don't even compare volume to the references...
I just push it in the Waves L2 limiter til it is showing some attenuation.
I only remember only 1 time when a library said a track was too loud.....reduced the limiter a bit....fixed!

My 2 cents,
Tim

How much is "some attenuation" in terms of db? I'm trying to wrap my head around this also. Thanks!

[ttully]

Well.... I am not sure if you have a Waves L2 Ultramaximixer or not....BUT

If you look at the picture of the L2 limiter on the link below..... that is about how it usually looks on my tracks.

The Threshold will vary on each track.
The Output Ceiling is usually -0.1 or -0.3
The Attenuation will be around where it is in the picture....it bounces around a bit....

https://www.waves.com/plugins/l2-ultramaximizer

Hope that helps some,
Tim

[Unstar]

Well.... I am not sure if you have a Waves L2 Ultramaximixer or not....BUT

If you look at the picture of the L2 limiter on the link below..... that is about how it usually looks on my tracks.

The Threshold will vary on each track.
The Output Ceiling is usually -0.1 or -0.3
The Attenuation will be around where it is in the picture....it bounces around a bit....

https://www.waves.com/plugins/l2-ultramaximizer

Hope that helps some,
Tim

Looks like about 3 db attenuation -- thanks