04-02-2015, 10:33 PM
Where I live a -8.5 LUFs master would get turned down and peak-limited quite severely on the radio, so it makes sense to think about the numbers from that standpoint... a -34 dBFS master would be normalized to the standard so that's not such a big deal. I think iTunes normalizes everything to something like -16 LUFS, so for a home studio master that's probably a pretty reasonable target. But when you're mixing, I agree with APZX entirely... focus on the music and how it makes you feel. Give yourself plenty of headroom, keep the gain reduction on the master buss modest and worry about loudness in mastering.
Having said all that... I'd have to try really hard to master to -8.5 LUFS. It takes a lot of compression, either channel by channel or on the master (probably both), to get a mix that loud... I'd probably have to force myself to push it that hard. You might be mixing things in an unhelpful order, pushing up on less important instruments first only to find you're fighting for headroom by the time you're working in the rhythm section... used to happen to me all the time.
Having said all that... I'd have to try really hard to master to -8.5 LUFS. It takes a lot of compression, either channel by channel or on the master (probably both), to get a mix that loud... I'd probably have to force myself to push it that hard. You might be mixing things in an unhelpful order, pushing up on less important instruments first only to find you're fighting for headroom by the time you're working in the rhythm section... used to happen to me all the time.
I'm grateful for comments and suggestions. Thank you for listening!