How to prepare a track for a review on stream: a checklist

A file or a link: why a file is better

A streamer will open a link to Spotify or a cloud drive, but that’s extra clicks during the broadcast, and the service may insert ads or compress the sound. Most importantly, a link doesn’t let anyone check what exactly you sent. A file goes into the queue whole; it can be analyzed and played with loudness normalization.

On Stream-Q, YouTube and SoundCloud links are downloaded automatically, while Spotify, Yandex Music and other streaming services are kept as a plain link: such a track doesn’t get a sound analysis, and the report won’t have a technical breakdown.

• Best option — WAV or FLAC, 24 or 16 bits, 44.1 or 48 kHz, exported straight from the project.
• Acceptable — a 320 kbps MP3, if the streamer limits the file size.
• Avoid — a WAV converted from an MP3, and rips from YouTube or social media. That’s upscaling: the file got bigger, but the quality stayed the same. More in the article about upscaled MP3s.

Loudness: not quieter than the others, and not a brick

Many stream players, including the Stream-Q player, normalize track loudness to a −14 LUFS target. That means an over-compressed master at −6 LUFS won’t sound louder than the rest — it will just be turned down, and next to the others it will seem flat. And a very quiet master has to be turned up by the player, and that gain is limited: on Stream-Q to no more than +6 dB.

Practical guidelines for a finished master:

• Integrated loudness around −14…−9 LUFS, depending on the genre. Louder than −8 LUFS is almost certainly over-compressed; quieter than −18 LUFS is a quiet master.
• PLR dynamics of roughly 8–12 LU. Under 6 LU, the track sounds squashed.
• Demos have softer requirements: what matters more is that nothing crackles and the vocal can be heard.

What these numbers mean is covered in the article “LUFS, PLR and LRA explained”, and how platforms behave — in the piece on loudness for streaming.

Peaks and clipping

Clipping is where the wave hit the ceiling of the digital scale and got cut off. It sounds like crunch and crackle on the drums and loud consonants. On stream it becomes even more noticeable: the sound is compressed again by the broadcast codec.

• There should be zero clipped sections. If the analyzer finds any, open the project and lower the level before the limiter, not after it.
• True peak no higher than −1 dBTP. Peaks between samples turn into distortion when re-encoded to MP3 or AAC.
• Turn on the limiter’s True Peak mode (many call it ISP) and set the ceiling to −1 dB.

Detailed instructions are in the article “Clipping and true peak: how to find and fix them”.

The start of the track and its length

The first 20–30 seconds decide how closely the rest of the track will be listened to. The streamer and the chat can’t see your whole idea — they hear what’s playing right now.

• Remove the silence at the start. The Stream-Q analysis flags a pause longer than two seconds: from the outside it looks like a broken file.
• A long intro is worth a second thought. If the first striking moment comes after a minute, consider a radio edit made specially for the review.
• Check the length limit. The streamer may limit track length, and a file that’s too long will be postponed. The limits are shown above the submission form.
• The tail. A couple of seconds of fade-out is fine; thirty seconds of reverb after the ending isn’t.

Title, version and lyrics

Label the track so it’s easy to announce on air: “Artist — Title”. If it’s a new version of a track that has already been played, add a note: (v2), (new mix), (demo). Stream-Q recognizes repeats by the audio fingerprint, not the title, and will show the streamer a duplicate mark — the version note will explain right away that you sent an improved version. If the track has vocals, attach the lyrics. On Stream-Q they’re needed for two things: the karaoke overlay, where the words light up in time, and the explicit content check. If the lyrics contain profanity, the track gets an 18+ mark — better to know in advance and choose a streamer who allows it.

Decide what feedback you need

“Rate my track” is too general a request. The streamer spends a few minutes on you, and it’s more useful if they know what to focus on. When sending to Stream-Q, you choose the track type and up to three review goals. The type decides the criteria: for a demo they’re the hook, structure, arrangement and potential for improvement; for a finished release — production, mix, master and originality.

• Want to know whether the idea is worth taking to release? Send it as a demo.
• The track is ready to release and you need an outside view of the mix? Choose “Finished release”.
• A beat or an instrumental is judged on groove, drums and space for a vocal — there’s a separate type for those.

State the genre honestly: the report compares your tonal balance with tracks in the same genre.

A final check in 10 minutes

1. Run the file through the track analyzer: loudness, true peak, clipping, file quality, BPM and key.
2. Listen to the track on a phone and on regular headphones — that’s how most viewers will hear it.
3. Check mono: if the bass or vocal disappears when summed to mono, the track has phase problems.
4. Double-check the title, version, genre and lyrics.
5. Read the channel rules: limits on free tracks, length, donation priority, a required subscription to a Telegram channel.

During the stream and after

Once you’ve sent a track, you see your place in the queue and the estimated waiting time on the stream page. If you’ve linked Telegram, the channel’s bot will send short technical feedback right after the analysis — there’s still time to replace a broken file before the stream.

• Be in the chat when your turn comes: the streamer may ask a question.
• Don’t argue with the score on air. Write down the notes and come back with a new version.
• After the stream, open the report: scores by criteria, the comment, the sound analysis and the timestamp in the stream recording, if the streamer added one.