[MLA] Spotify’s plans

[Grimm | Eelco]

Hi Bob,

>> Right. AFAIK all tracks of an album are attenuated with equal amount.
> 
> That's ambiguous, it could mean several things. Please rephrase.
> 

"If loudest track of album = -8 LUFS, attenuate all tracks of album by 3 dB before encoding". 

> You're saying that half a cake is better than none. I'm saying that if you have millions upon millions of songs, getting it done right is a priority. So if it's not right, keep working until it is, no compromise. 
> 
AFAIK Spotify is the only streamer who intends to apply any attenuation before encoding. We should applaud them for that, even if attenuation to -14 LUFS would be better than to -11 LUFS. 

That being said, what we could in fact recommend as an alternative is that they attenuate to -14 LUFS before encoding and then use the metadata to not just align to the low loudness target (-23 LUFS), but also to the high loudness target (-11 LUFS). In the latter case some clipping may eventually occur, but the default -14 LUFS target will perform better in general.

>> I am not 100% certain that Spotify does not apply positive gain and compression in #3, but what I recall is: compression is only used for ‘Loud’ playback at -11 LUFS, and this compression is not performed in the app, but stored on the server.
> 
> I tagged you in a thread where Sigurd proved using John Cage's "4:33" that Spotify upward normalizes and peak limits all three targets. Though it would be very rare to find something below -23 LUFS, that extreme case proves that the algorithm is in use. 
> 

You are right: so there is indeed upwards compression in use at the -14 LUFS target. We should disencourage them from that.

Cheers,
Eelco

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