Loudness for Spotify and YouTube: −14 LUFS

What loudness normalization is

So listeners don't have to reach for the volume knob between tracks, platforms bring them all to one loudness. The service measures a track's integrated loudness in LUFS and on playback shifts its level by the difference from the target. A loud master doesn't get louder in a playlist — it just gets turned down.

Platform targets

The analyzer applies each platform's own rules:

• Spotify — −14 LUFS. Loud tracks are turned down; quiet ones are raised in the default mode, but only until true peak reaches −1 dBTP. Premium settings also have “Loud” (−11) and “Quiet” (−19) modes.
• YouTube — −14 LUFS, downwards only: YouTube won't raise a quiet track.
• Apple Music — −16 LUFS (Sound Check): adjusts both ways, taking peaks into account.
• Yandex Music doesn't publish an official target; mastering practice uses the same −14 LUFS, so this row in the report is marked as an estimate (≈).

So should I master to −14 LUFS?

Not necessarily. −14 is what the platform will bring the track to, not a requirement for the master. If your genre sounds dense and loud, a −9 LUFS master turned down by 5 dB will sit level with everything else — with the density you chose. Problems start when loudness is bought with clipping and lost transients: after turning down, only the squashed sound remains.

Spotify's advice: if the master is louder than −14 LUFS, keep true peak at or below −2 dBTP, otherwise at or below −1 dBTP. The analyzer shows loudness, peaks and what each platform will do to the track — the decision is yours.

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