You made your master louder than the reference. On Spotify, it sounds quieter and smaller. Why?
Streaming platforms use loudness normalization. Spotify’s default playback setting targets −14 LUFS. That means your −6 LUFS master will simply be turned down. And once its level is reduced, an over-limited track can sound smaller than a more dynamic one.
The second issue is peaks. You may see 0 dB on the clipper, but after encoding for streaming, inter-sample peaks can exceed zero. That can introduce distortion or harsh artifacts.
That is why I enable True Peak in Pro-L 2. I set the master ceiling to −1 dBTP, or −2 dBTP for a master louder than −14 LUFS. Spotify also recommends leaving headroom to help avoid clipping during encoding and playback.
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