I suggest looking at "gray noise" as a mixing tool... that is to the Equal Loudness Contour what pink noise is to the equal power line (1 over f).

It can be tricky to create your gray noise, especially since the contour shifts depending on the volume that the music is played at, but you can (for example) plan for club play at, say, 95 dB, and then you will have loudness but you will still be able to hear the parts.


If you get the right gray noise for your needs, you can actually just use the matching in FabFilter Pro-Q or Ozone to adjust your song's curve to that of the curve for your volume level.

I never knew any study like this existed. I also never even thought to realize that the frequencies humans are more sensitive to affect the perceived loudness off the song. I will definitely begin considering this in my future productions. Thank you so much for the insight!

Not so much sound like them, but just get in the same league, so listeners dont get turned off by the difference in volume between some blasted through the roof carnage track and my track

There's not a major amount of wisdom I can part, but this is a piece of advice I will stand by until I go to the grave, passed onto me from my father, via my grandfather and his fathers before him, and I pass it to you...

NEVER compare your music to Carnage

Study multiband compression.... this way you can compress/expand different frequencies before limiting them to get a loud mix but also not destroy the track either.

I've found that using the full stereo space increases the perception of loudness (fullness?) quite a lot. I like re-layering or duplicating certain sounds, especially supersaws/big pads, with stereo-separated versions of themselves.

Also, RMS mastering (as opposed to peak) definitely results in a louder final mix. It's not always worth it though, especially if you want expressive dynamics.

Regardless, the biggest issue is getting that mix right! Not easy.

Short answer:

1. Compression or parallel compression
2. Saturation
3. Clipper
4. Limiter

Before buying into the loudness war, consider this:
I am sure you heard of RMS, but there is a newer and better method called LUFS, „Loudness Units relative to Full Scale“. It represents a more accurate information on how loud your track is in general than the RMS method.
YouTube, as one of the biggest platforms to discover music, has implemented such a thing to avoid having audio sounding either too quiet or just being compressed too hard - read more about this here: http://productionadvice.co.uk/youtube-loudness-normalisation-details/

You can either have say one minute of middle-loud vers, and then one minute of middle-loud chorus, or one minute of quiet verse and loud chorus - the LUFS (an integrated value) is going to be the same - and guess what will sound better So let's say after mastering, you have a loud verse and loud chorus, therefore the LUFS has risen too, so it will be turned down for you by YouTube and will sound worse than the version with dynamics.
You can get a free metering plugin here: [url]https://www.klangfreund.com/lufsmeter/[/url
Somewhere on this side there is a simpler and free version of it.

I hope this was an insight for you. I am sure that it is just a matter of time that this method of loudness measuring will spread to other platforms like Soundcloud, since it is already in use for radio, television and most importantly YouTube, to end this loudness war and bring back the music.

All the best,
Artless Venture ♢