The "Loudness War" Is Real: Why Your Master Is Quiet

Mastering Isn't Magic. It's Volume Management.

If you finish a track, slap a limiter on the master, and crank the gain until it distorts, you are doing it wrong.

Modern Bass Music (Dubstep, DnB, Tearout) is incredibly loud (-5 LUFS to -3 LUFS). You cannot achieve that volume with just a limiter. A limiter "pushes" the sound down when it hits the ceiling, causing pumping and loss of energy.

To get loud without ruining the track, you need to stop asking the limiter to do all the work. Here is the 3-step chain we use to get massive volume.

Step 1: The "Sub vs. Headroom" Battle

Low frequencies carry the most energy. If your sub-bass is 2dB too loud in the mix, it will eat up all your headroom in the master.

The Fix: Tonal Balance.

Before you touch a mastering plugin, look at your Tonal Balance (using a tool like Tonal Balance Control or SPAN). Your Sub, Mid-Bass, and Highs should form a gentle slope. If your Sub is spiking way above everything else, turn it down in the mix. This instantly buys you 3dB of free volume on the master.

Step 2: The Secret Weapon (Soft Clipping)

This is the difference between amateur and pro masters.

A Limiter ducks volume to prevent clipping. A Soft Clipper chops the peaks off.

In Bass Music, your snare transient is often 6dB louder than the rest of the track. If you feed that into a limiter, the limiter ducks the entire song every time the snare hits. The result? A quiet, pumping master.

The Fix: Put a Soft Clipper (like GClip, KClip, or StandardCLIP) before your limiter. Use it to shave off the top 2-3dB of those snare transients. You won't hear the distortion, but you will suddenly have room to push the volume much harder.

Step 3: The Limiter (The Safety Net)

Now that your sub is balanced and your peaks are clipped, your Limiter has an easy job.

It doesn't have to work hard. It just catches the final signal and brings it up to level. Set your ceiling to -0.1dB (or -1.0dB for streaming) and push the gain until you hit your target LUFS.

FAQ

1. What LUFS should I aim for?

Answer: Ignore the "-14 LUFS" advice from Spotify. That is for acoustic music. If you upload a Dubstep track at -14 LUFS, it will sound tiny in the club.
Targets:
• Dubstep/Tearout: -5 to -4 LUFS
• House/Tech: -6 to -5 LUFS
• Pop/Future Bass: -8 to -7 LUFS

2. What is "True Peak" and does it matter?

Answer: True Peak detects inter-sample peaks that might clip when converted to MP3. For streaming services, it's safe to set your ceiling to -1.0dB True Peak. For SoundCloud or Club masters, most pros just ceiling at -0.1dB and don't worry about it.

3. Should I use Multiband Compression on the Master?

Answer: Be careful. Multiband compression changes the balance of your mix. If the mix is good, you don't need it. If the mix is bad, fix the mix. Only use it to "glue" the track together (slow attack, fast release, low ratio).

Conclusion

Loudness is not an accident. It is the result of a balanced mix and a mastering chain that manages peaks before they hit the limiter.

If you want to see exactly how we route our Clipper > Limiter chains, grab our Mastering Templates. They are pre-calibrated to hit -5 LUFS instantly.

Happy Mastering.