Handy Loudness Normalization Simulation Tool :)

As many of you know, Spotify, Apple Music, Youtube and many other platforms implemented loudness normalization some time ago now (which is a great thing and hope AJ will one day soon follow suit!). The problem is, different platforms not only use different loudness targets, but different algorithms for handling loudness normalization. If you push your master too hard these days, it will often end up being quieter than a track mastered more modestly (loudness wise).

While plugins like Ozone have tools to simulate how your master will sound in different formats and bitrates, I was looking for a tool to quickly simulate how a new release was going to sound on these platforms after the loudness normalization process. If you’ve done your research, you know that mastering to the platforms target is not necessarily the right move, and can in fact create quiet masters. There seems to be a sweet spot.

Well, I came across the Loudness Penalty Analyzer a little while ago and just wanted to share it in case one of you were also looking for something similar! I understand you can manually take a track to compare and adjust to the same target but this is great for opening up a music player using LN to compare your own master with.

If you know of any similar (or better) tools share them here! I would love to take a look!

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Good find Tim, thanks for sharing this. I usually try to use something like the free Youlean Loudness Meter plugin to check the LUFT measurement if I’m not using Ozone for a particular track. But as you say, trying to measure to certain targets sometimes creates an unsatisfying result. Here is a good article on the subject: [https://unlockyoursound.com/spotify-lufs/]

It would be very helpful if Audiojungle would list their standards for approval. I would suspect many great songs are being rejected for mix/master reasons only (mine included!).

THanks!