LUFS
Also known as: loudness units, integrated loudness
The standard measure of perceived loudness over time, which is what platforms use to decide whether to turn a video up or down.
Updated
What it means
LUFS measures how loud something sounds rather than how high its peaks reach. A track can reach the ceiling on a single Audio peak and still measure quiet overall, because loudness is about sustained energy and not instants.
The distinction matters because the two are controlled separately. A Peak level limit prevents distortion, while a loudness target decides how the video compares with everything else a viewer watches.
Platforms normalise uploads to their own target, turning loud videos down and quiet ones up. Mastering to roughly the right level is therefore a way of keeping control rather than a formality.
How it works in practice
Measuring across the whole video is what counts, not per clip. Integrated loudness over the full duration is the number a platform reads, so a single loud section does not define it.
Mixing to a target in the region most platforms use leaves the result untouched on upload. Mastering much louder achieves nothing, because the excess is taken straight back off.
Dynamic range survives better at a sensible target. Squashing a mix to maximum loudness and then being turned down leaves a flat track, while Normalization to the target keeps the quiet parts quiet.
What to watch out for
Loud mixes lose rather than win. Compressing everything up to maximum loudness yields a track that is turned down on upload and sounds lifeless next to one that was not.
Targets also differ between platforms, so a single master is always a compromise. Aiming at the middle of the range is more robust than optimising for one destination.
Measuring the music alone misses the point. Camera audio, effects and Voiceover all contribute, so the figure that matters is the finished mix rather than the track underneath it. Measuring the music in isolation reliably understates where the video will land.
How RawClip handles it
The finished mix is mastered to a loudness in the range platforms expect, so a highlight is neither turned down on upload nor delivered quieter than everything around it. Peaks are limited separately so nothing distorts, because the two measurements control different problems.