Normalize audio to streaming platform loudness targets (-14 LUFS for Spotify, -16 LUFS for Apple Music)

Steps

1. Measure the integrated loudness of your finished mix using a LUFS meter that implements ITU-R BS.1770 gating — tools include iZotope Insight, the free Youlean Loudness Meter plugin, or FFmpeg's ebur128 filter
2. Determine your primary delivery target: Spotify normalizes to approximately -14 LUFS integrated; Apple Music targets approximately -16 LUFS; YouTube targets approximately -14 LUFS; platforms only turn loud tracks down, they do not boost quiet tracks to these targets
3. Apply loudness normalization in your DAW or via FFmpeg's loudnorm filter targeting -14 LUFS integrated with a true peak ceiling of -1 dBTP — this value satisfies most major streaming platforms and provides codec headroom for AAC and Ogg Vorbis encoding
4. Do not simply apply a limiter to hit the number — use a true-peak compliant limiter or the loudnorm filter's linear mode to avoid inter-sample peak distortion that emerges after lossy encoding
5. For Apple Music specifically, if you want a dedicated master, target -16 LUFS integrated with -1 dBTP true peak — Apple's Sound Check feature will still normalize playback, but a quieter master may have better dynamic range preservation
6. Export at 24-bit depth before delivery so the platform's encoder has full dynamic range to work with, even if the final consumer file will be 16-bit or lossy