<html><head><meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html charset=utf-8"></head><body style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space;" class=""><div>Hi Bob,</div><div><br class=""><blockquote type="cite" class=""><div class=""><div text="#000000" bgcolor="#FFFFFF" class=""><blockquote type="cite" cite="mid:E0B8A93A-2ECA-4CE9-A2D1-2B77634C1E38@grimmaudio.com" class=""><div class=""><div class="">Right. AFAIK all tracks of an album are attenuated with
equal amount. </div>
</div>
</blockquote><p class=""><br class="">
</p><p class="">That's ambiguous, it could mean several things. Please rephrase.<br class=""></p></div></div></blockquote><div><br class=""></div><div>"If loudest track of album = -8 LUFS, attenuate all tracks of album by 3 dB before encoding". </div><br class=""><blockquote type="cite" class=""><div class=""><div text="#000000" bgcolor="#FFFFFF" class=""><p class="">
</p><p class="">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. </p></div></div></blockquote><div>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. </div><div><br class=""></div><div>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.</div><br class=""><blockquote type="cite" class=""><div class=""><div text="#000000" bgcolor="#FFFFFF" class=""><blockquote type="cite" cite="mid:E0B8A93A-2ECA-4CE9-A2D1-2B77634C1E38@grimmaudio.com" class=""><div class="">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.</div>
</blockquote><p class=""><br class="">
</p><p class="">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. <br class=""></p></div></div></blockquote><div><br class=""></div><div>You are right: so there is indeed upwards compression in use at the -14 LUFS target. We should disencourage them from that.</div></div><br class=""><div class="">Cheers,</div><div class="">Eelco</div><div class=""><br class=""></div></body></html>