When mastering music for Soundcloud, keep a couple of factors in mind: your audio will get normalised to -14 LUFS, and the encoding procedure will alter the amplitude. It’s a good idea to master around -14 LUFS and have a maximum peak of -1dBTP. Although there is no specific volume at which you should master your audio, a good range for Soundcloud mastering is -18 LUFS to -10 LUFS. Keep in mind that Soundcloud will normalise your music to -14 LUFS, so keep the volume around this amount.
How Loud Should My SoundCloud Master Be?
It is a tricky topic to answer because there is no exact volume that the master should be when uploading to Soundcloud; nevertheless, Soundcloud now normalises audio to an integrated -14 LUFS. Furthermore, Soundcloud normalises audio upwards and downwards.
- In other words, if your track’s loudness is less than -14 LUFS, Soundcloud will increase it to -14 LUFS. Furthermore, if your audio is louder than -14 LUFS, Soundcloud will reduce the volume to an integrated -14 LUFS.
- It indicates that anytime a listener hears your music, it will play at a volume, in this example, -14 LUFS.
Essential Mastering Levels Advice:
Check out socialgreg for setting compression and limiting levels is an aspect of the mastering process.
Zero Equals Zero:
The first Golden Rule of digital recording is straightforward: nothing should get recorded over zero. It is true whether the value is 0 dB, 0 dB VU, 0 dBFS (Full Scale), 0 LUFS, or 0 LKFS. If you send a signal across that point to your digital-to-analog converter, it will try to play the data but will be unable to do so because the waveform will square off (“clip”), resulting in distortion.
Begin with Enough Headroom:
The second golden rule, which is the analogy to the first, is giving oneself enough headroom. Most plugins, particularly those that simulate analog equipment, are designed to operate within a specific input level range, which does not contain peaks at zero. A decent rule of thumb is maintaining stable signals like rhythm guitars, synthesisers, or pads between -20 and -16 dBFS and transient peaks like drums and percussion instruments no higher than -6 dBFS.
While Working, Measure:
Even if you’ve already reduced the overall headroom, it’s an idea to keep an eye on your metres as you apply different mastering procedures. If you’re measuring the average RMS (Root Mean Square) level with a VU readout, 0 on the metre should be between -7 and -9 dBFS (putting 0 = -6 dBFS or less is asking for trouble). When monitoring peak levels, ensure they do not exceed -.3 dBFS.
Final Goals:
What should your ultimate goal be? The solution is on the mechanism that gets utilised to provide music to the user. Set your last limiter’s output roof to -0.2 or -0.1 dBFS if you’re solely mastering the CD. If you want to err on the side of caution (or if you get mastering loud music), consider lowering it to -0.3 dBFS, which will prevent such peaks in even the worst-case circumstances without causing a perceptible loss in loudness.