The Mastering Show #95 - Loudness trends in 2024: should you follow them ? with Ian Stewart

The Billboard Top 50 global singles from the first half of 2024 have an average loudness of -8.3 LUFSSo that’s how loud we should be making our masters, right ?Well…It certainly might seem that way, but in reality it’s a bit more complicated than that. This is only one of the interesting results that Ian Stewart presented in his latest blog post for iZoTope, and in this episode I asked him back on to really dig into some of the details and nuance.Plus I also wanted to talk to him about the amazing plug-in that got invented during the last episode he was on ! (Well, that’s my story and I’m sticking to it 😛)During the show we talk about: * What that -8 LUFS average result REALLY means, and how much attention you should pay to it * Who the most successful artist in the Top 50 is, and the loudness statistics of their music * The problem with the title iZotope chose for the post * All the other results, trends and biases in the data * Basslane Pro, the plug-in Ian worked with Tone Projects to develop, why it’s unique - and how The Mastering Show helped it happen !Full show notes on our sitehttps://themasteringshow.com/episode-95Mentioned in this episode:LeapwingFind out more about Leapwing's pluginsToolsFor Ian's mastering plugins, click HERELearn to master !Click HERE to see Ian's courses and mastering resources