Loud mastering for Spotify

How to get loud masters on Spotify?

Step 1: Mastering

Spotify—and other streaming services—will apply loudness normalization to your track. To sound louder, you’ll need clear transients.

Instead of compressors and limiters, use clippers to preserve your transients (set your project to 16-bit and push your tracks into the red to clip them; normalize your master to -1 dBTP afterwards).

Step 2: Music composition

When an orchestra plays a piece, people at the back need to be able to hear the melody. To achieve this, composers will layer their melodies—in unison or octaves—and they’ll make sure each melody is played in an octave range that works well for the orchestra.

You can use these tips to sound louder:

• Layer your instruments (in unison or octaves).

• Use clear octave ranges (higher octaves have more perceived loudness than lower ones).

• Choose instruments with a clear timbre.

• Use chord voicings that sound clear.

• Use fewer notes in the low end, and more notes in the high end.

Volume faders are a great tool to bring up your mid-range frequencies. Use your faders to bring up vocals, lower your kick, and lower your sub-bass. Be careful with excessive bass and treble since they reduce perceived loudness. Bring up the instruments in the C5-C6 range.

Step 3: The mixing workflow

Follow these steps:

1. Listen to a reference track (the idea is not to recreate it, but to calibrate your ears).

2. Use your faders to balance your track. Turn up your vocals, turn down your kick. Turn up your melody, turn down your bass.

3. Export your master and upload it to Loudness Penalty: Analyzer to hear how it sounds on Spotify.

4. Compare it to your reference track.

5. Repeat until you’re satisfied.

When your master sounds loud on Spotify, you may use plugins. High-pass and low-pass filters can be used from the beginning.

That’s how you get louder masters on Spotify.