Loudness Penalty

Will your music be turned down by online streaming services?

Confidently assess how your music will play back online.

With Loudness Penalty, you can...

• Optimize your music's online loudness: Share your music knowing it will hold up online.
• Preview how your music will sound online: No need to leave your DAW.
• Pinpoint loudness pain-points: Find exactly which parts of a song trigger the biggest penalty.
• Discover when it's possible to turn your music up: without incurring a penalty.
• Reassure clients: Show them how streaming services affect loudness.
• Avoid loudness indecision: No more trial and error, no more guessing.

Avoid the Loudness Penalty - Don't be turned down by online streaming services

Online streaming services turn down loud music to ensure a more consistent listening experience. The Loudness Penalty plugin tells you how much your music will be turned down by YouTube, Spotify, TIDAL, Pandora and Apple's Sound Check. Now you can have immediate access to this information right in your DAW. Spot the moments that trigger the biggest penalty, and tweak your settings to avoid them, while retaining impactful, punchy playback.

Why Do You Call It a Penalty?

Because it is! We deliberately chose the name "Loudness Penalty" to be a little provocative, but it is accurate. The louder your music is, the more it will be turned down by online streaming services, to avoid "blasting" listeners with unexpected changes in loudness. You may think that your music sounds fine, even when it has been turned down, but with Loudness Penalty you can be sure. Preview your music live, and test whether you want to take advantage of the opportunity for more dynamics.

No More LUFS Estimates

Objective, accurate feedback.

Have you ever been told to upload your music at -14 LUFS, or some other estimated value? Don't - it doesn't work! Only one streaming service currently uses LUFS to make its loudness decisions, and while LUFS estimates can tell you the overall reference loudness for a particular service, individual songs can be quieter by as much as 3 dB, in our experience. Loudness Penalty gives you far more accurate feedback, typically within half a dB of the real-world values. No more guessing, no more trial and error. With Loudness Penalty, you can optimize and upload your music knowing it will stand head and shoulders against the competition.

Features

• Realtime Loudness Penalty scores
• Supports the five most popular streaming services
• Discover when you can turn your music up, without a penalty
• Preview how your music will sound online
• Faster than real-time processing with Pro Tools' Audio Suite

System Requirements

• macOS 10.7 or later (64-bit only) (Apple Silicon Native)
• Windows XP SP3 or later (32 / 64-bit)

Formats 

• Audio Unit, VST 2.4 and AAX