Music Video Loudness on YouTube: What Level to Aim For

Engineer checks music master loudness in studio

Aim to master your song at about -14 LUFS integrated, with true peak at -1 dBTP or lower. YouTube does not publish an official target, but its playback reference is consistently measured at around -14 LUFS. Anything louder is turned down when people play it, and anything quieter is left as it is. Pushing your master harder therefore gains you nothing. It usually costs you punch.

This guide explains what happens to your audio after you upload it, which numbers to check before export, how to see for yourself whether YouTube has turned your video down, and why a music video can sound different on a phone than it did in your studio.

MusicvideomarketplaceTurn Your Finished Track Into a VideoMusicvideomarketplace helps musicians create a long-form video in minutes to upload to YouTube and create an ad campaign for their song.Visit

TL;DR

YouTube normalises to roughly -14 LUFS integrated. It reduces louder audio but does not boost quieter audio.
Keep true peak at -1 dBTP or lower (-2 dBTP for very loud masters), because YouTube re-encodes your audio.
Right-click the player and open Stats for nerds to see whether your upload has been turned down.
Heavy limiting to win volume tends to sound weaker after normalisation, so protect dynamics instead.
Check the final export on a phone speaker and in stereo before you publish.

What YouTube does to your music video’s volume
The numbers to check before you export
How to check what YouTube did to your upload
Why a music video can sound quiet, distorted or different after upload
Music under speech: intros, interviews and behind-the-scenes cuts
A pre-upload checklist
Perspective
Get a video that is ready for your finished master
FAQ
Sources

What YouTube does to your music video’s volume

YouTube measures the average loudness of every upload and adjusts playback so videos sit at a similar level. The adjustment happens in the player. It is not baked into your file, so the file you uploaded stays as you made it.

The process only goes one way. If your master is louder than the reference, the player lowers it. If it is quieter, it plays at its own level, which means a very quiet master will sound small next to the video that played before it.

Here is how that looks in practice, using the examples from a YouTube loudness checker:

Your master (integrated)	What viewers hear
-9 LUFS	Turned down by about 5 dB, so it plays at roughly the reference level
-14 LUFS	Plays as uploaded
-20 LUFS	Plays at -20 LUFS, noticeably quieter than the video before it

The lesson is simple. A loud master gets no advantage on YouTube, and a very quiet one gets no help.

Why a loud master can sound worse

Loudness normalisation matches average loudness and removes the advantage of super-loud songs. That makes the flaws of over-limiting easier to hear. A track squashed well past -14 LUFS often ends up weaker and less dynamic after normalisation, because the platform turns it down while the squashed transients stay squashed.

In plain terms, you can spend your effort on a master that hits hard at -14 LUFS, or you can chase volume that YouTube then removes. The first option sounds better.

A note on Stable volume

YouTube has a viewer setting called Stable volume that evens out quiet and loud passages. One mastering guide reports that it is on by default but switched off for YouTube Music and official music videos. Since this behaviour is YouTube’s to change, treat it as a reason to focus on a clean master rather than a number to design around.

The numbers to check before you export

You need two measurements: integrated loudness and true peak. Any loudness meter plugin in your editing software or DAW will show both.

Integrated loudness: about -14 LUFS

For music, mix around -14 LUFS integrated. Measure the whole song, from the first note to the last, not a loud chorus. Integrated loudness is an average across the full length, so a long quiet intro will pull the figure down.

You do not have to land exactly on -14. A master a little louder, say -12 LUFS, will simply be turned down by about 2 dB. What matters is that you did not sacrifice dynamics to get there.

True peak: -1 dBTP or lower

YouTube re-encodes audio to lossy formats such as Opus or AAC, and the encoder can raise peaks slightly. For that reason, set the true-peak limiter at -1 dBTP, or -2 dBTP for very loud masters. Another guide suggests keeping true peaks below -1.5 dBTP, which is a sensible safe side if your master is dense.

True peak is not the same as sample peak. Sample peak reads the digital samples. True peak estimates the level of the waveform between samples, which is where clipping after encoding comes from. Use a meter that shows true peak.

What about the broader -12 to -6 dBFS advice?

You will see general video advice that web content should average between roughly -12 and -6 dBFS. That is a rule of thumb for mixed video such as ads and talking-head content, and it measures differently from LUFS. For a song, work in LUFS and true peak and ignore the dBFS range.

How to check what YouTube did to your upload

You do not have to guess. YouTube shows its own numbers.

Upload your video and let processing finish.
Open it on desktop, right-click the player and choose Stats for nerds. On mobile, open the settings menu to find it.
Look at the Volume / Normalized line.
Read the content loudness figure. A value above 0 dB means the video is turned down by that amount. A value of 0 dB or below means it plays as uploaded, and a negative number shows how much quieter than the reference it is.

Older write-ups describe the same panel showing a negative normalisation gain such as -5 dB when a track was louder than the target. The display has been reworded over the years, so read the figure rather than relying on the wording.

A useful habit: pull up a well-loved release in your genre and compare its Stats for nerds reading to yours. That gives you a realistic benchmark, not a theoretical one.

Why a music video can sound quiet, distorted or different after upload

Most complaints come down to a handful of causes. Work through them in this order.

It is quieter than the video before it. Your master may be well below -14 LUFS. In one platform’s study, 22.5% of the mixes submitted were quieter than -16 LUFS, so this is common. YouTube will not lift it. Raise the level in mastering, with gentle limiting, until you sit near -14 LUFS.

It sounds crunchy or harsh. Either the master was limited hard, so normalisation exposes the damage, or the true peaks were too hot and the lossy encode clipped them. Lower the limiter ceiling to -1 dBTP or below and ease off the limiting.

It sounds thinner or the bass has vanished. Over 70% of YouTube watch time is reported to happen on mobile, often through phone speakers or earbuds. A bass-heavy master that shines only on studio monitors will lose its low end there. Sub frequencies rarely translate through small speakers, so clear mids and a controlled low end carry better.

It sounds narrow or hollow. Editing software sometimes collapses audio to mono during export. One audio-post forum reply to this exact complaint suggests downloading your own upload and checking it is still stereo. Open your export in a player with a stereo meter before you upload.

The vocal is buried under music. This is a mix balance issue, not a loudness one, and it matters most when you add spoken parts, intros or voiceover to your video. The next section covers it.

Five music video audio symptoms and checks

Music under speech: intros, interviews and behind-the-scenes cuts

Some music videos carry spoken intros, a story cold open or a voiced call to action. For those moments, the music needs to sit well below the voice.

The BBC’s audio delivery guidance says research shows that reducing music levels a little helps people, including those with certain types of hearing loss, to hear dialogue. It recommends taking the music down 4 dB once the final mix is complete. That is a broadcast standard, but the principle carries over directly.

For a narrated YouTube video, one creator guide suggests keeping the music bed about 24 to 31 dB quieter than the voice, measured as loudness rather than peaks. The same guide notes that ducking can make the bed pump under continuous narration, and that a constant bed about 24 dB under the voice avoids this.

If the voice is short and the song is the star, you may prefer a quick, smooth duck. If someone talks for a minute, set a steady bed.

A pre-upload checklist

Run through this on the final exported file, not the session in your editor.

Measure integrated loudness over the whole track. Aim near -14 LUFS.
Check true peak. Keep it at -1 dBTP or lower, and lower again for dense masters.
Listen on a phone speaker and on earbuds. Does the kick or bass line still register? Preview on a phone speaker before you publish, because low-end effects may not translate.
Confirm stereo. Open the export and check both channels carry signal.
Compare against a reference. Play a professionally released song in your genre right before yours and see if yours jumps out or disappears.
Upload, then check Stats for nerds. If the figure is far from what you expected, fix the master and re-upload rather than patching with the editor’s volume slider.

Perspective

At Musicvideomarketplace we see the same pattern again and again: artists spend weeks on the visuals question and ten minutes on the audio that goes under them. Then the video goes up and the song sounds smaller than the track next to it.

Our view is that the video and the master should be treated as one release. Every video in our catalogue is made by professional filmmakers specifically for music, never with AI or generic stock footage, and it is designed so you can bring your own audio and branding and export a YouTube-ready file. That puts the sound in your hands, which is where it should be.

So master first, at around -14 LUFS with safe true peaks, then drop the finished audio into the video. You get a full-length video in minutes without a custom shoot, and a track that plays at the level you intended.

Music

Get a video that is ready for your finished master

Once your master sits where you want it, the video should not slow you down. We offer human-made, ready-to-edit, full-length music videos that you can customise with your own audio and branding, export for YouTube and cut into short social clips. Membership is £19.99 per month, and recurring extra videos are £9.99 per month per video, as published on our pricing page.

Musicvideomarketplace

You can browse the catalogue and see how licensing works on our music video licensing page. If you are still planning your upload, our guide on preparing a music video for YouTube covers the rest of the process.

FAQ

How loud should music be in a YouTube video?

For a song, aim for about -14 LUFS integrated with true peak at -1 dBTP or lower. YouTube turns louder audio down and leaves quieter audio alone, so there is no benefit in going louder. If speech sits over music, keep the music clearly beneath the voice.

Does YouTube make quiet videos louder?

No. Normalisation works in one direction only: it reduces audio above the reference and does not boost anything below it. If your upload sounds quiet next to others, raise the level in mastering and upload again.

Why does my music video sound worse on YouTube than in my editor?

The usual causes are hot true peaks clipping during the lossy re-encode, heavy limiting that normalisation exposes, a bass-heavy balance that fades on phone speakers, or a mono export. Fix the master, then check the file on a phone and in stereo.

How do I see if YouTube turned my video down?

Right-click the player and open Stats for nerds, then read the Volume / Normalized line. A figure above 0 dB means YouTube is lowering your video by that amount. A figure at or below 0 dB means it plays as uploaded.

Do I need to re-master for YouTube separately from Spotify?

Not necessarily. Many engineers use one master near -14 LUFS across platforms, and industry guidance recommends that target for music videos. Check the true peak ceiling and listen once more on the final video export.

Music Video Loudness on YouTube: What Level to Aim For

Music Video Loudness on YouTube: What Level to Aim For

TL;DR

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