Studio credit
Elephant Audio
Audio production · Sound design · Music production
LahorePKEngineering sound since 2018
Guides to briefing, budgeting and delivery
Streaming reference
Is My Song Too Loud for Spotify?
Spotify does not reject a song for being loud. It normalises playback to −14 LUFS, so a louder master is simply turned down and the loudness bought with heavy limiting is given back. The real risks are distortion from true peaks above Spotify's guidance and, for quiet masters, a lift that stops short because there is no headroom.
- Normal
- −14 LUFSNormalthe default playback level
- Loud setting
- −11 LUFSLoud settinglimiter engaged at −1 dB
- Quiet setting
- −19 LUFSQuiet settinglistener-selectable
- true peak guidance
- −1 dBTPtrue peak guidance−2 dBTP for louder masters
Targets published by each platform. Elephant Audio delivers to these specifications; the marks below identify whose specification each figure is.
Spotify
What happens to a loud song on Spotify?
Spotify turns loud masters down, not away
Spotify measures every uploaded track to ITU 1770 and applies gain on playback so tracks sit at a comparable loudness. On the default Normal setting that level is −14 LUFS. A louder master is played quieter than it was delivered, by exactly the amount it measures above −14 LUFS; a master at −14 LUFS is played as it is.
Nothing is rejected, flagged or penalised for being loud. The consequence is quieter: whatever loudness was won in mastering is handed back by the volume control, while the cost of winning it — limited transients, flattened dynamics — stays in the file.
What “too loud” actually costs
Turning a track down adds no distortion, so a loud master is not damaged by normalisation itself. What changes is the comparison: next to a dynamic master at the same playback level, a heavily limited one can sound smaller, because its peaks were shaved to make it loud and the loudness has now been taken away.
The listener's own setting matters too. On Loud, Spotify targets −11 LUFS with a limiter engaged at −1 dB, so a dynamic master may be limited on playback for listeners who choose it. That setting is theirs, not the artist's — an argument for a master that survives the whole range rather than one tuned to a single number.
Why a quiet master can end up quieter than everything else
Lifting a quiet track is not symmetrical with turning a loud one down. Spotify caps positive gain by headroom so the lift cannot clip. Its own example: a track at −20 LUFS with a true peak of −5 dBFS is lifted only to −16 LUFS, not all the way to −14.
So a master that is quiet overall but has peaks close to full scale can play noticeably quieter than the tracks around it. The fix is not to master louder at any cost; it is to leave the peaks room.
Spotify's own worked example
“If a track loudness level is -20 dB LUFS, and its True Peak maximum is -5 dB FS, we only lift the track up to -16 dB LUFS”
Spotify's true-peak guidance
Spotify advises headroom for its lossy encoding:
- Keep true peak below −1 dBTP for lossy formats.
- For masters louder than the −14 LUFS target, keep true peak below −2 dBTP to prevent distortion during encoding.
How to check your own master
Measure the exact file you are uploading, not a bounce of a different version:
- Integrated loudness tells you how far Spotify will turn the track down, or how much it would need to lift it.
- True peak tells you whether the lift will be capped, and whether the master sits inside Spotify's true-peak guidance.
- The free loudness meter on this site shows both, and its Spotify row states what will happen to that file in plain terms.
Spotify is one platform, not the whole release
Spotify publishes its normalisation figures; not every platform does. Apple, for example, publishes no numeric loudness target for its stereo catalogue. Broadcast is a different question again: a television delivery at −23 LUFS under EBU R 128 is a requirement the file must meet to be accepted, whereas −14 LUFS is what Spotify does to a file after upload.
A master that holds up after normalisation.
We master for streaming release with the headroom Spotify asks for, so the track keeps its punch at −14 LUFS instead of being turned down and flattened.
Proof
Work from this service line.
Projects the studio lists under Mixing & Mastering, the service line this guide sits under.
Questions
Frequently asked.
Should I master to −14 LUFS for Spotify?
Not as a rule. −14 LUFS is where Spotify normalises playback, not a delivery requirement, and a master is never rejected for missing it. Leaving true-peak headroom matters more, because a quiet master with peaks near full scale cannot be lifted all the way to the target.
Will Spotify make my loud master sound worse?
Turning it down adds no distortion. What a very loud master loses is the loudness itself, while keeping the limiting that produced it, so it can sound smaller next to more dynamic masters played at the same level. High true peaks can also distort in Spotify's lossy encoding.
Why does my song sound quieter than other songs on Spotify?
Usually because it measures below −14 LUFS and its true peak leaves too little headroom for Spotify to lift it fully. Spotify caps positive gain so the lift cannot clip, which leaves the track playing below the others.
What does Spotify's Loud setting do to my track?
It raises the playback target to −11 LUFS and engages a limiter at −1 dB to prevent clipping, so a dynamic master may be limited during playback for listeners who choose that setting.
Is Spotify's −14 LUFS the same kind of number as broadcast's −23 LUFS?
They are the same unit but not the same kind of requirement. −23 LUFS under EBU R 128 is a delivery specification a file must meet to be accepted. −14 LUFS is what Spotify does to a file after it is uploaded.
A master that holds up after normalisation?
We master for streaming release with the headroom Spotify asks for, so the track keeps its punch at −14 LUFS instead of being turned down and flattened.
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