The question how loud should a master be comes up more than any other in mastering, and the honest answer is: it depends on where the music is going, and louder is no longer automatically better. Streaming platforms normalise playback, so a brick-walled master often just gets turned down to sit beside everything else, minus the punch you sacrificed to make it loud. This guide gives you concrete LUFS targets by platform and genre, explains true-peak ceilings, and shows you how to choose a loudness that serves the song rather than winning a meter contest.
Understand LUFS, true peak and normalisation
Loudness is measured in LUFS (Loudness Units Full Scale), which models how humans actually perceive volume over time, unlike a simple peak meter. The number that matters for streaming is integrated LUFS, the average loudness across the whole track. True peak, measured in dBTP, is the real analogue level after digital-to-analogue conversion, and it can exceed your sample peaks by a decibel or more, which is why a master that reads 0 dBFS can still clip a listener’s DAC or a lossy codec.
Most streaming services normalise to around -14 LUFS integrated. If your master is louder than that, say -8 LUFS, the platform turns it down by roughly 6 dB so it matches its neighbours. You do not get to be “the loud one” in the playlist; you only keep the tonal and dynamic consequences of how you got there. That single fact reframes the whole loudness question.
How loud should a master be? Targets by destination
Use these as starting points, then trust your ears and references:
- Streaming (pop, rock, indie, singer-songwriter): aim for -9 to -12 LUFS integrated. This stays punchy after normalisation without crushing dynamics. Chasing -14 exactly is unnecessary; the platform will handle the match.
- Loudness-forward genres (hip hop, EDM, metal): -6 to -10 LUFS integrated is normal. You accept attenuation on streaming in exchange for density and impact that suit the style. Just keep the crush musical.
- Podcast and spoken word: platforms and standards cluster around -16 LUFS integrated (mono often -19), because intelligibility beats loudness for voice.
- Club, DJ and CD masters: can push louder still, around -6 to -8 LUFS, since there is no normalisation layer, but never at the expense of the ceiling.
In every case, set your true-peak ceiling to -1 dBTP. That 1 dB of margin protects against inter-sample peaks and lossy-codec overshoot; more conservative engineers use -1.5 dBTP for material destined for heavy MP3 or AAC compression. Measure with a meter that shows both integrated LUFS and true-peak, such as the free Youlean Loudness Meter, so you are hitting a number rather than guessing.
Why louder is not always better
Every dB of loudness past a certain point costs you something. To raise integrated LUFS you pull the limiter threshold down, and the further you push, the more the limiter reduces transients: the kick loses its click, the snare loses its snap, and the mix flattens front-to-back. Because streaming normalises anyway, a listener hears your over-limited master at the same volume as a more dynamic one, but yours sounds smaller and more fatiguing. The only honest test is a loudness-matched comparison: match your master and a commercial reference to the same LUFS, then A/B. A plugin like ADPTR MetricAB does this automatically, and it is the fastest way to cure “loudness deafness,” where louder always seems better until the levels are equalised.
How to hit your target cleanly
Reaching a loudness target is not just about slamming a limiter. Build up to it:
- Fix the low end first. Uneven sub bass forces the limiter to work far harder than the rest of the track needs. Gentle multiband control of 1.5-3 dB below 100-120 Hz often buys you 2-3 dB of clean loudness for free.
- Use gentle glue compression (2:1, ~30 ms attack, 1-2 dB gain reduction) so the limiter is not doing all the level control on its own.
- Keep limiter gain reduction sensible. Up to about 3-6 dB on peaks is usually clean; beyond that, listen critically for pumping and lost transients. A transparent limiter such as FabFilter Pro-L 2 with true-peak limiting and oversampling enabled keeps the ceiling honest.
Then check translation on phone, laptop, earbuds and in mono, because a master that only sounds loud and clear on your monitors has failed. If your room or headphones are the weak link, our headphone mastering guide helps you stay objective, and the wider mixing and mastering guides plus the free meters in our audio tools hub give you the tools to measure everything.
Do not master to a single number blindly
It is tempting to treat -14 LUFS as a hard rule and normalise every mix to it, but that is the wrong lesson. A gentle acoustic ballad and a wall-of-sound metal track can both be “correct” at very different loudnesses because they have different amounts of natural dynamic range. What you should hold constant is the true-peak ceiling and the discipline of referencing, not a fixed LUFS figure. Two other numbers are worth knowing alongside integrated LUFS: short-term LUFS, which tells you how loud the busiest section feels moment to moment, and loudness range (LRA), which measures how much the loudness varies across the song. A very low LRA on a track that should feel dynamic is a warning that you have over-compressed. Watch all three and let the song’s character, rather than a target you read on a forum, decide where you land.
The short answer
Master to around -9 to -12 LUFS integrated for most streaming releases, louder for hip hop and EDM, quieter for podcasts, and always cap true peak at -1 dBTP. Then stop asking the meter and start asking a loudness-matched reference. The right loudness is the one that keeps your song punchy and dynamic after the platform has had its say, not the biggest number you can force before it breaks.
