LUFS (Loudness Units Full Scale)

LUFS measures perceived loudness, not peak amplitude. One LUFS unit equals one dB, but the scale accounts for the frequency sensitivity of human hearing (K-weighting), so a 1 kHz sine at -23 LUFS sounds louder than a 100 Hz sine at the same measurement. The EBU R128 standard, adopted across European broadcast in 2012, set the target at -23 LUFS integrated (average over the full program) with a tolerance of +/- 0.5 LU. True Peak must not exceed -1 dBTP. Netflix specs demand -27 LUFS integrated with a dialogue-gated measurement, which means only speech portions count toward the average — music and effects are excluded from the gating. YouTube normalizes to approximately -14 LUFS, Spotify to -14 LUFS as well, though Spotify's normalization can be bypassed by the user's volume setting. Apple Music targets -16 LUFS. These numbers are not interchangeable. A mix that reads -14 LUFS for YouTube will sound 9–10 dB too quiet on a Netflix spec deliverable, and vice versa.

Broadcast and streaming platforms enforce loudness normalization. If you upload a track at -8 LUFS to YouTube, it gets turned down to -14. The creator gains nothing. But social media platforms — Instagram, TikTok, and Twitter — apply inconsistent or no normalization. Creators who push their levels to -6 LUFS short-term (measured over 3-second windows, not integrated) get perceptually louder audio in the feed. It works because users scroll past quiet content. The honest constraint: mixing for -14 LUFS integrated and -1 dBTP true peak on short-form content means your audio will sound noticeably quieter than competitors who clip their masters. The technically correct approach and the competitive approach diverge on social platforms. For client deliverables, always match the delivery spec. For your own social content, test both — normalization behavior changes every few months without announcement.