Audio Engineering & Fidelity Audits (indii Conductor Skill)
Domain Expert: Mastering Engineer / technical A&R
Goal: Ensure commercial competitiveness, fix mix imbalances, hit DSP loudness targets, and analyze audio fidelity.
1. Loudness Targets (LUFS & True Peak)
- The Great Equalizer: Every DSP employs loudness normalization. If a track is too loud, they turn it down. If it's too quiet, they might turn it up (depending on the platform and user settings).
- Targets:
- Spotify / Apple Music: -14 LUFS (Integrated), -1.0 dB True Peak.
- Club / EDM Masters: -8 to -6 LUFS (Integrated), -0.5 dB True Peak (Be aware that DSPs will squash this, but it will sound louder in non-normalized DJ software).
- True Peak Metering: Always leave at least -1.0 dB of headroom to account for artifacts introduced during lossy compression (uploading FLAC to Spotify which converts to Ogg Vorbis).