Export at specific LUFS

That’s normal. Uncompressed wave exports and MP3s will always be prone to slight differences.

I can’t think why you’d need to render 5 times. Just use a volume fader to raise the level and use Brickwall Limiter to avoid clipping (or use a Maximiser).

That’s basically the same as normalizing. That may be good for a rough mix, but for a good mix, you will probably want to look at everything in the chain. Most plug-ins can have an effect on total loudness, and they may behave differently at different input levels.

I never touch my master fader. That’s always at unity for me.

@ cparmerlee - so you’re mixing to make a final master? or do you do a separate mastering stage? I’d strongly recommend you create a mix which is perfect to your ears and not worrying over much about the integrated LUFS level. And then do a separate mastering stage to achieve the levels you want. In my opinion, you really shouldn’t be getting to the LUFS integrated level you need by doing 5 renderings. If you have to do this there may also be an issue with the level of your tracks in the first place. I mention this because a lot of people seem to struggle in the opposite sense, that is keeping the final output level from being too loud.

Indeed but in my opinion your process is not optimal. Doing 5 renderings to change the level is certainly not good practice and rendering multiple times could be damaging your audio.

When you say you might have to render 5 times what precisely are you doing? Do you mean you render the whole mix and then re-import it into the project? And then play that file soloed and then render again… and you do that 5 times? If so, you are effectively doing a mastering stage five times, re-mastering a master each time :open_mouth: . Each to their own but I really don’t think this is optimal for retaining the quality of your audio.

Yes, on many projects I prefer to do it all in one pass and can get good results – with the exception of the time wasted trying to reach the desired LUFS.

I take your point about the separated process. However, I would also note that if your mix is far from the target volume level, then making it up in a separate mastering phase, especially if you are doing it only via a limiter – can significantly change the character of the mix. I guess if the mix is within 3 or 4 dB of the target, then it is probably OK to (effectively) normalize it in the mastering step.

And I do some projects that way, especially if working with StudioOne, which has some support built into its mastering section for quickly metering the LUFS on each song.

I don’t think it is reasonable to ask people to pay $400ish for a separate product to help with something so basic as setting volume levels. I’d like to see all the DAWs include more built-in support for metering LUFS. I do use an Izotope plug-in for this, but you do have to run a complete rendering to get your number.

@ cparmerlee - I take your points and you’ve obviously got your defined way of working. I think a mastering stage is often beneficial… a subtle process which depending on the type of material often involves increasing the perceived level, clarity and impact while retaining the characteristics and identity of the original mix. By having a separate stage it gives you an opportunity to produce an optimised final product.

But then again it could be argued that you have a mix problem and not a mastering problem. I mean a perfect mix is not going to be that quiet and if it is then it is not a perfect mix. So in this case it’s probably time to go back and do the mix again.

I think Cubase’s LUFS metering is quite good. Asking Cubase to calculate the LUFS integrated loudness for the current project could be a tricky process, especially when some sources such as external synths triggered by MIDI would not be included. There may be other complications. However, in principle I see no reason why SB couldn’t include this for the current project between the left and right locators.

I’m pretty sure they don’t put it into cubase because wavelab takes care of all of this. I have used the loudness normalization for audio books and music and it works great. There is also a one button analyzer that gives lufs lows and highs over time. Sucks to have to use another program but it is good at what it does. Not sure if Cubase has it but Nuendo does have a Normalize to integrated loudness in the export window as well.

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The days when mastering could be done as an independent process after mixing are gone forever. Now days, as cparmerlee says, you must watch your LUFS while mixing. And, you can only get an accurate LUFS reading during mixing if you include your mastering processing. Ergo, mixing and mastering need to be done at the same time in these post-loudness war times.

I appreciate your point of view. However, I think mastering is still a valid process and certainly not ‘gone forever’. In fact I think that any process is a valid process if it gets you the result you need.

My statement that you quoted was specifically in the context of something cparmerlee said with regard to mixing and mastering.

If I understood cparmerlee correctly, at the beginning of his input to this thread he seemed to be saying that he was doing something akin to a mastering stage, perhaps even doing it a number of times.

Sure you can watch the loudness meter while you’re mixing. If you do this you can get your mix in the right integrated loudness ballpark by keeping an eye on the short term and momentary values as well as the ongoing integrated value. I don’t think there’s any ‘must’ about it though. I’m sure each user of Cubase has their own way of doing mixes and making final versions of their work. These must vary enormously.

I still don’t quite understand why you are saying that mixing and mastering ‘need to be done at the same time’. This is not an imperative. How you work is simply a choice and I think you’d have a hard time trying to put everyone in this same strait jacket. As mentioned mixing techniques vary enormously. Some might quickly export the mix and do a quick analysis of the resulting file when they need the integrated loudness near to completing the mix, others might have a working method where they don’t look at integrated loudness at all during the mix and do a mastering stage afterwards. Some might work the same way you do. Many of course simply never use loudness meters. In all cases using your ears is paramount.

So, in my opinion, this whole thing is just a question of opinion and choice. There’s no one correct way of doing this, but there are cetainly some basic accepted guidelines about what is good and bad for your audio. If your way of doing it sounds right to your ears then trust your ears and stick to it. I for one appreciate your and cparmerlee’s points of view and I do agree that improving Cubase’s handling of integrated loudness values would be helpful for your way of working. And once again all this is just my opinion.

I’m just pointing out the new reality of loudness penalties.

As a practical matter, if you maintain separate mixing and mastering processes (and I don’t most of the time), it is faster t check the LUFS levels in the mastering stage because you don’t have to drive all those mix-related plug-ins. It is a trade-off. Most of the time my final volume tweaks are not simply a general gain boost. Maybe that says I wasn’t really done mixing. I don’t know. Most of my projects are not for songs that are going up on CD Baby, so I don’t usually find myself “mixing into the dark hours.” I’m usually looking for quick results – often cleaning up the audio tracks of video projects.

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I found a plugin in an external wave editor (Twisted Wave) that sets the LUFS to -14 with a maximum true peak value of minus 2. From what I understand this seems to be standard for something like Spotify. I have no idea how to do this in Cubase in a limiter. I would love to have this done with a good limiter setting and a single Audio export, but till I figured this out, I am using Twisted Wave for this.
Screenshot 2023-01-16 at 13.45.31

That’s not really a plug-in, is it? It looks to me like Twisted Wave is a stand-alone editor, like Audacity.

I agree with you that exporting to a target level in Cubase is a real pain.I wish there were support for this within Cubase proper. However, I doubt Steinberg will do this because they want to sell Wavelab. Wavelab is a very powerful platform specifically for the mastering process and has strong capabilities in the area of achieving target levels easily. Here’s a video that touches on that.

Twisted WAVE IS $100. Wavelab Elements is the same price, but I don’t know if Elements includes this LUFS targeting.