Loudness Targets & Delivery Specs

Think of LUFS as how loud your music feels to a human ear over time — not just the peak of a single drum hit, but the overall perceived loudness of the whole track. It stands for Loudness Units relative to Full Scale, and it’s the standard every major streaming platform uses to decide whether to turn your music up or down.

True Peak is different: it catches the highest signal spike between the digital samples — the ones your DAW meter might miss. If your true peak goes above the platform’s limit (usually -1 dBTP), you get digital distortion on playback. That’s the crackle nobody wants.

When Spotify says their target is -14 LUFS, they mean: “if your track is louder than -14, we turn it down; if it’s quieter, we can turn it up.” The problem? A track mastered at -8 LUFS (very loud, no dynamics) gets turned down to -14 — and now it sounds flat and lifeless next to a track that was mastered at -14 with its dynamics intact.

The takeaway: louder is not better on streaming platforms. The platform always wins. Master to the target, keep your true peak safe, and your music arrives exactly as you intended.

The Delivery Specs Pack includes a step-by-step guide for adjusting loudness from a finished master — without destroying dynamics. ↓