Podcast Loudness Targets to Hit Before Every Upload

A listener has your episode playing in the car, then the next show in their queue starts and they have to grab the volume knob. Either your episode was too quiet and they turned it up, or the next one blasts them. That jump is a podcast loudness problem, and it is the single most common technical complaint I hear from people who otherwise make good shows.

Setting the right podcast loudness target before upload takes about five minutes once you know the numbers. You need two of them: integrated loudness, measured in LUFS, and true peak, measured in dBTP. Get those right and your episode sits comfortably next to professionally produced shows on every app.

What Podcast Loudness Actually Measures

Your editor's peak meter tells you the loudest single instant. That is useful for avoiding clipping, but it tells you almost nothing about how loud the episode feels. A recording can peak at 0 dB and still sound quiet if most of the talking sits far below that peak.

LUFS, short for Loudness Units relative to Full Scale, measures perceived loudness over time, weighted the way human hearing works. Integrated LUFS is the average across the whole episode. That is the figure platforms and listeners care about. Two other readings appear on most loudness meters:

• Short term loudness, measured over three second windows, which shows whether one segment is much louder than the rest.
• Loudness range, in LU, which shows how much the level swings. Talk shows usually sit between 4 and 8 LU.

The Numbers to Aim For

There is no single official target for every app, but the common ground is clear enough to work with.

The mono figure is 3 LU lower because a mono file played through two speakers sounds roughly 3 dB louder than the measurement suggests. If you export mono at -16 LUFS, it will feel louder than a stereo show at the same reading. Pick one target and use it on every episode, so your back catalogue sounds consistent when someone binges it.

Why Normalisation Will Not Save You

A common line in forums is that you need not bother, because the apps normalise everything anyway. I disagree, for three reasons.

First, not every app normalises, and many listeners download the file directly through a podcast player that plays it as is. Second, when a platform turns a quiet episode up, it can only raise the level as far as the peaks allow. An episode at -24 LUFS with peaks at -1 dBTP cannot be raised 8 dB without clipping, so it gets limited by the platform's processing, which you did not choose and cannot hear in advance. Third, when a platform turns a loud episode down, any crushing you did to get it loud stays. The result is a show that is no louder than anyone else and sounds more tired.

Mastering to the target yourself means the file sounds the way you intended, everywhere.

A Five Step Order for Hitting the Target

Order matters more than the specific plugins. Doing these out of sequence is how people end up chasing the meter for an hour.

1. Clean first. Remove noise, hum and mouth clicks before anything else. If your room is the problem, fix it at the source, as covered in our guide to taming a boomy room for cleaner podcast audio.
2. Balance voices. Bring each speaker to a similar short term level with clip gain, so no one is 6 dB quieter than their co host.
3. Compress gently. A ratio of 2:1 to 3:1 with 3 to 6 dB of gain reduction on the loudest phrases is enough for most speech.
4. Normalise to the LUFS target. Use your editor's loudness normalisation function on the full mix, not on each track.
5. Limit last. Set a true peak limiter with a ceiling of -1 dBTP. It should only catch the occasional laugh or plosive.

Check the export, not the timeline

Measure the final MP3 or AAC file, not the project. Lossy encoding can add half a decibel or more to true peak values. If your exported file reads above -1 dBTP, lower the limiter ceiling to -1.5 and export again.

Remote Guests and Uneven Sources

Interview shows have a particular problem: the host records locally on a decent microphone, the guest arrives through a laptop microphone or a compressed call. The guest track is often 8 to 12 dB quieter and noisier.

Fix that in step two, before any processing on the full mix. Raise the guest track with clip gain, then add light noise reduction to that track only. If you push the whole mix through heavy compression to even the two out, the host will start to sound squashed. Getting a cleaner guest file in the first place helps more than any fix, and our walkthrough on recording a remote podcast guest shows how to ask for a local backup recording.

Mistakes That Show Up on the Meter

A few patterns appear again and again when I check episodes for other creators.

• Loud music beds. An intro sting at -10 LUFS and speech at -18 LUFS gives an average that looks fine while the listener's ears say otherwise. Match the music to the voice by ear, then measure.
• Limiting by 10 dB. If the limiter is pulling down more than 3 dB regularly, the level going in is too hot. Lower it and let normalisation do the work.
• Measuring only a section. Integrated loudness needs the whole file. A two minute sample can be 2 LU off.
• Ad reads at a different level. Dynamically inserted ads are often mastered elsewhere. Ask your host or network what target they use and match it.

FAQ

Do I need a paid plugin to measure LUFS?

No. Most current editors, including free ones, include a loudness meter or a loudness normalise function. A paid meter adds more detailed history graphs, which are handy but not required for a talk show.

Should my video podcast use a different target?

If the video version goes to a streaming video site, -14 LUFS is a sensible target because those sites normalise to around that level. Export a separate audio master at -16 LUFS for podcast apps rather than using one file for both.

What if my show has a lot of music?

Music driven shows can sit at -14 to -16 LUFS with a wider loudness range. Keep the true peak ceiling at -1 dBTP and listen on earbuds to check that speech remains clear between songs.

Make It a Habit

Save your mastering chain as a preset with the LUFS target and limiter ceiling already set, then measure every exported file before it goes to your host. Write the final integrated LUFS and true peak in your episode notes. After ten episodes you will have a record that shows instantly when something changed, and listeners will stop reaching for the volume knob. For more on production workflow, browse our podcasting guides.