LUFS Master is the last plugin on your stereo bus. It measures loudness exactly the way Spotify, Apple, YouTube, and broadcast networks do — ITU-R BS.1770-4 — shows you the health of your stereo image, and holds your output to a true-peak ceiling so you never deliver a file that clips. One window answers the three questions every master must pass: is it the right loudness, is it safe on playback, and will it hold together everywhere people listen.
The center of the plugin reports loudness the way the delivery world measures it. Around it sit the tools that tell you why the numbers look the way they do — a sweeping loudness radar, a live goniometer, and a correlation meter.
The last fraction of a second — loudness moving in real time.
A three-second window — the feel of the current passage.
The gated average over the whole program — your true delivery loudness.
How dynamic the material is, quietest meaningful passage to loudest.
A circular display sweeps your recent loudness history and color-codes every moment against your target, so consistency problems — a chorus that jumps, a verse that sags — jump out at a glance instead of hiding in a number.
Sweeping history · target-relative colorA phase scope draws the stereo field as a live Lissajous figure with dB rings, while a correlation meter warns you when parts of the mix are out of phase and will collapse in mono. The mistakes loudness numbers can't see — a widened mix that disappears on a phone, a balance drifted to one side — surface here.
Lissajous phase scope · mono-compatibility warningHigh-precision Peak and RMS readouts per channel, plus true-peak (dBTP) bar meters with a numbered scale and peak-hold, round out the picture — the level detail that sits underneath the loudness story.
Per-channel peak/RMS · dBTP bars · peak-holdThe loudness engine implements ITU-R BS.1770-4 — the same algorithm Spotify, Apple, YouTube, Netflix, and broadcast networks use to decide how loud your audio is. Read it here and you know exactly what the delivery platform will read, before you ever upload.
BS.1770-4 · standards-accurate · not "by feel"Spotify, Apple Music, YouTube, and Tidal all turn your track up or down to land near their own target (roughly −14 LUFS). Master too loud and the platform turns you down, throwing away the dynamic range you crushed to get there. Knowing your integrated loudness lets you make that call deliberately, not by accident.
Playback normalization · preserve dynamicsWhen digital audio is converted back to analog, the reconstructed waveform can rise higher than any individual sample — an inter-sample peak. A file that looks clean on a normal meter can still distort on a phone or a lossy stream. LUFS Master oversamples to catch those peaks and holds output to a true-peak ceiling, so what you deliver is genuinely safe on real playback systems.
Oversampled detection · inter-sample-peak safe · dBTP ceilingTelevision delivery specs — −24 LUFS in the US under ATSC A/85, −23 LUFS under EBU R128 in Europe — are enforced. A program delivered off-spec gets rejected. There, an accurate BS.1770 meter with a true-peak limiter isn't a preference, it's the tool the spec assumes you're using.
ATSC A/85 · EBU R128 · deliverable, not preferenceBecause gain in dB maps almost one-to-one onto LUFS, the correction is immediate and predictable. Four steps, and you're in spec.
Choose where the audio is going — streaming, podcast, game, broadcast. It sets both the loudness target and the recommended true-peak ceiling.
Let the program play. The integrated reading settles on your true delivery loudness over the whole piece.
One value, in plain LU, tells you how far over or under you are. No mental math.
Move the master gain by that amount, arm the true-peak limiter at the preset ceiling, and you're in spec — safe and on target.
Each preset sets the loudness target and the recommended true-peak ceiling for its medium — so the right numbers are one click away.
| Delivery target | Loudness | True-peak ceiling |
| Spotify / Tidal / YouTube | −14 LUFS | −1 dBTP |
| Apple Music | −16 LUFS | −1 dBTP |
| Podcast (Apple) | −16 LUFS | −1 dBTP |
| Gaming | −16 LUFS | −1 dBTP |
| TV Broadcast — US ATSC A/85 | −24 LUFS | −2 dBTP |
| TV Broadcast — EU EBU R128 | −23 LUFS | −1 dBTP |
| Club / EDM | −9 LUFS | −1 dBTP |
| Loud music master | −7 LUFS | −1 dBTP |
| Dynamic / acoustic master | −13 LUFS | −1 dBTP |
A note worth keeping in mind: for streaming music specifically, the exact target matters less than people fear — the service normalizes playback anyway, so the smarter goal is to preserve dynamic range and land in the right neighborhood. The strict, non-negotiable targets are the broadcast ones — and that's exactly where an accurate, standards-based meter earns its place.
The core users — anyone handing off a finished stereo file that has to meet a number. Replaces juggling several separate meters with one accurate, standards-based window.
Takes the mystery out of "how loud should my song be?" and stops you over-compressing a master the platform is just going to turn down anyway.
Live and die by the −16 LUFS target. The integrated reading plus Delta-vs-target makes hitting it trivial — and keeps loudness consistent across episodes.
The users for whom this isn't optional. Delivery specs are contractual and enforced; an accurate BS.1770 meter with a true-peak limiter is exactly what the spec assumes.
Mixing to the −16 LUFS convention, or posting to YouTube and TikTok — the same quick target-and-trim workflow lands you where the platform expects.
A real-time phase scope and correlation meter for checking mono compatibility, spotting phase cancellation, or confirming a widened mix still holds together — even when loudness isn't the concern.
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LUFS Master is an original Dreamlab Digital Media product. It is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or derived from any hardware or software manufacturer. Full licence terms at dreamlabnet.com/daw2/eula.html.