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Loudness Penalty Plugin

Will your music be turned down by online streaming services?

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How Does it Work?

See the Loudness Penalty plugin in action.

Confidently assess how your music will play back online

With Loudness Penalty, you can...

Optimize your music's online loudness
Share your music knowing it will hold up online.
Preview how your music will sound online
No need to leave your DAW.
Pinpoint loudness pain-points
Find exactly which parts of a song trigger the biggest penalty.
Discover when it's possible to turn your music up
without incurring a penalty.
Reassure clients
Show them how streaming services affect loudness.
Avoid loudness indecision
No more trial and error, no more guessing.

Take Control of the Loudness Penalty

Manage how much your music is turned down by online streaming services

Loudness Penalty screenshot

Online streaming services turn down loud music to ensure a more consistent listening experience. The Loudness Penalty plugin tells you how much your music will be turned down by YouTube, Spotify, TIDAL, Pandora and Apple's Sound Check. Now you can have immediate access to this information right in your DAW. Spot the moments that trigger the biggest penalty, and tweak your settings to avoid them, while retaining impactful, punchy playback.

Why Do You Call It a Penalty?

Because it is!

Waveform shrinking

We deliberately chose the name "Loudness Penalty" to be a little provocative, but it is accurate. The louder your music is, the more it will be turned down by online streaming services, to avoid "blasting" listeners with unexpected changes in loudness. You may think that your music sounds fine, even when it has been turned down, but with Loudness Penalty you can be sure. Preview your music live, and test whether you want to take advantage of the opportunity for more dynamics.

No More LUFS Estimates

Objective, accurate feedback

LUFS levels

Have you ever been told to upload your music at -14 LUFS, or some other estimated value? Don't - it doesn't work! Not all the streaming services currently use LUFS to make their loudness decisions, and while LUFS estimates can tell you the overall reference loudness for a particular service, individual songs can be quieter by as much as 3 dB, in our experience. Loudness Penalty gives you far more accurate feedback, typically within half a dB of the real-world values. No more guessing, no more trial and error. With Loudness Penalty, you can optimize and upload your music knowing it will stand head and shoulders against the competition.

Testimonials

What's the word on the street?

Photo of Lij Shaw
Finally a way to make sure my mixes will rock listening off the Internet! Loudness Penalty lets me know right now what my mix will sound like later on when I listen to them on streaming sites like YouTube, Spotify and TIDAL. This is a super cool plugin!" Lij Shaw (Toy Box Studio)
Photo of Wytse Gerichhausen
Finally something new and useful in the plugin market! I didn't know I needed this, but it's the most useful plugin of 2019 yet." Wytse Gerichhausen (White Sea Studio)
Photo of Mike Hillier
The Loudness Penalty website has been a fantastic aid for quickly displaying why I master the way I do. It's great to have this as a plugin now. I've been using Perception and Dynameter on nearly everything I work on, I can see Loudness Penalty being added to my template." Mike Hillier (Metropolis Mastering)

Features

  • Realtime Loudness Penalty scores
  • Supports the five most popular streaming services
  • Discover when you can turn your music up, without a penalty
  • Preview how your music will sound online
  • Faster than realtime processing with Pro Tools' Audio Suite

Plugin Formats

AAX logo Audio Units logo VST logo
  • macOS 10.7 or later (64-bit Intel or Apple Silicon)
  • Windows XP SP3 or later (32/64-bit)

  • Available for immediate download
  • Pay with credit card or PayPal
  • 60 day money-back guarantee
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