How do you achieve a consistent loudness level across different platforms and devices?

Loudness is context-specific, technology might have evolved to accommodate platforms, a variety of devices and their limitations. Nevertheless, there is lots of ground to cover and technology is yet to keep up with so many variables. For Film mixes, it's crucial to review the standards and delivery specifications required for the project. Furthermore, it's good practice to monitor mixes on different playback devices, it's not uncommon to review a film sound mix on a soundbar or built-in speakers on a TV set. While the context is different in music production, the same principles could be applied. Streaming platforms (Spotify, Tidal..etc) have published extensive documentation on loudness specifications for optimal playback.

For studio-type releases, a loudness meter of some sort is key. LUFS is the current standard, rather than RMS and peak dB readings, because it's more consistent across multiple platforms, including Spotify, YouTube, and Apple Music. These platforms and their competitors apply a uniform loudness level across all content, regardless of how content is mastered. If your final masters are too loud or too quiet for the platform, the unique algorithm will adjust your content to be more in line with the rest of their catalog. The difficulty is that each platform has a different standard, so an average somewhere in the middle of the most common platforms will prevent the mix from being negatively impacted by overly aggressive platform compensation.

Obviously, use the Loudness meter, but watch the PPM too, and you’ll learn where it should be for certain content. Don’t feel like you have to keep Loudness at -23 in the short term. Allow it to drop back on chat, to allow big audience reaction and live music to actually sound louder. As a rough guide, in light entertainment, try keeping chat around 4.5 on the PPM, allowing space for particularly big audience reaction, and music numbers to hit 5.5 PPM. Otherwise these exciting moments sound particularly unexciting!

Be careful not to overdo this step. Too much compression or limiting will crush the sound and reduce the dynamic impact of your music. I recently ran a couple different versions of a song I produced with different compression and limiting. The version that used less aggressive processing ended up being the final version, because everything had more room to breathe. Consistent levels are good, but avoid going overboard with the processing, as the loss of dynamic range will negatively impact the quality of the mix.

Take extra time to research and study different compression styles and types, it will save a lot of time and prevent rookie mistakes of over compressing. In my experience its ill-advised to use one compressor to try and solve all your dynamic range taming problems, I found that using different compressors to solve one problem at a time whether it be depth, volume, thickness or glue using different compressors for each will give a smoother overall sound

Consistency is key here, be sure to double check your mix three or four times before you bounce it. Play it back from your speakers at a low volume and listen to it multiple times, take note of what you actually hear from different parts of the room. You will notice that some instruments are either clashing or hiding in the mix, fixing it should be simple afterwards

I feel that some mixers in post are frightened to let chat levels drop. I hear what they do to the mix I’ve done as they try to even out the dynamics that I’ve built in to a mix. You still need to leave space for loud things, like big audience reaction, or live music. A band striking up should sound louder and more impressive that people chatting. If you keep easing up the chat levels, you have nowhere to go when one of these things come along, and it makes those events sound totally flat and unimpressive. It will make a music number actually sound held back. It’s as if they’re trying to keep the Loudness meter at -23 all the time. That’s absolutely not the idea, and in fact the opposite of the of the intended idea of Loudness.