Free tool
LUFS loudness checker
Drop in a track and see its integrated loudness, true peak and loudness range, measured to ITU-R BS.1770-5 — the same standard streaming platforms use to decide how loud your music plays.
Drop an audio file, or choose one. It's read on this device and never sent anywhere.
If it needs to move
Set the target from the material, not the table
One contextual next step, offered after your result — never in front of it.
A reading over a platform’s target is turned down on playback, not damaged; a true peak over the ceiling is the one line that needs acting on, and the place to act is the mastering stage. Euphona’s AI mastering analyses the mix, sets a loudness and true-peak target for the material rather than for a service, applies the chain and lists every move it made. The free plan runs it on your own track and plays the result back level-matched against the original.
The numbers
What these numbers mean
Four readings, and the one thing each of them is actually telling you to do about it.
LUFS measures how loud something sounds over time, rather than how large its waveform is. That's why a dense, compressed master can read louder than an open one that peaks higher — and why streaming platforms normalise by LUFS rather than by peak.
- Integrated loudness
- One number for the whole track. Quiet passages below −70 LUFS are excluded, and so is anything more than 10 LU below the average — so an intro of near-silence doesn't drag it down. This is the number platforms normalise against.
- True peak
- The highest level the waveform reaches between samples, which is what a lossy encoder actually has to reproduce. It's usually higher than the peak your DAW shows, and that gap is why a master that looked fine distorts after upload.
- Loudness range
- How much the loudness moves across the track, in LU. A heavily limited master might be 3 LU; an orchestral recording 15 or more. Neither is wrong — it describes the music.
- Being “over” a target
- It means the platform turns your track down by that much. It doesn't mean the track is too loud, and turning it down yourself gains you nothing except the dynamics you gave up to get there.
Where the platform targets come from
- Spotify — -14 LUFS, -1 dBTP. Spotify Loudness Normalization documentation.
- Apple Music — -16 LUFS, -1 dBTP. Apple Digital Masters technical specification.
- YouTube — -14 LUFS, -1 dBTP. YouTube loudness normalisation, as measured and widely reported.
- Broadcast (EBU R128) — -23 LUFS, -1 dBTP. EBU R128.
Verification
How to check this tool
Measure the same file here and in whatever meter you already trust. They should agree to about a tenth of a LU; if they don't, ours is the one to doubt and we'd like to know. The implementation is checked against the EBU Tech 3341 compliance signals on every build, at 44.1, 48, 88.2 and 96 kHz.