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4 new / mastering modules

New: True Peak, LUFS, and the mastering checks that decide if your track survives streaming

Mix Analyzer now checks True Peak (dBTP), LUFS and streaming targets, noise and hum, source quality, and genre reference match - 4 new modules, free on every analysis.

8 min read Mastering Prep Updated 2026-05-29
Mastering Prep AI Analysis Frequency Balance Reference Tracks
New: True Peak, LUFS, and the mastering checks that decide if your track survives streaming - Mix Analyzer blog
The numbers a streaming release lives or dies by are no longer hidden. True Peak, LUFS, noise, and source quality are measured on every analysis, for free, so the master you hear is the master the platform plays.

The master that sounded great in your DAW

You bounce a master. It sounds huge in your DAW. You put it on Spotify and it comes back quieter and a little crunchy on the loud parts. Two things you could not see did that: the platform turned your loudness down to its target, and the peaks you trusted were not the real peaks. This release closes that gap. Mix Analyzer went from 17 to 21 analysis modules, and the four new ones are free on every web analysis.

  • Loudness & Mastering - LUFS, True Peak (dBTP), clipping, DC offset, and streaming-target compliance.
  • Noise & Artifacts - noise floor, 50/60 Hz mains hum, and high-frequency hiss.
  • Source Quality - lossy-encoding detection, estimated bit depth, and a codec assessment.
  • Reference Match - tonal balance and loudness against a built-in genre target curve.

Loudness & Mastering: the big one

We now show Integrated Loudness (LUFS), Loudness Range, and True Peak in dBTP, measured with 4x oversampling so we catch the inter-sample peaks that only appear after lossy encoding. Sample peak alone lies. The streaming-target panel tells you, per platform, how much each service will turn your track up or down, and whether your peaks clear the ceiling.

  • Spotify, YouTube, Tidal: around -14 LUFS, -1 dBTP true-peak ceiling.
  • Apple Music: around -16 LUFS, -1 dBTP.
  • Amazon Music: around -14 LUFS, -2 dBTP.
  • Club / CD master: around -9 LUFS, -0.3 dBTP. We also flag hard clipping and DC offset.

Noise & Artifacts: what listeners feel but cannot name

Cheap interfaces, bad grounding, and sloppy gain staging leave a noise floor, 50/60 Hz mains hum, and high-frequency hiss. Listeners feel it even when they cannot point at it. We detect it and tell you the likely cause so you can fix the source instead of guessing.

  • Noise floor in dBFS, so you know how clean the quiet parts really are.
  • Mains hum reported as none, 50 Hz, or 60 Hz, with harmonics.
  • High-frequency hiss measured in the 8-16 kHz band.

Source Quality: you cannot master a 16 kHz MP3

A surprising number of masters start from an MP3 or an upscaled file. If there is a hard spectral brick-wall around 16 kHz, you are polishing a degraded source and no plugin chain fixes that. We detect lossy encoding from the spectral cutoff and estimate the effective bit depth so you can go back to the real master before you waste time on it.

  • Spectral cutoff reveals where energy stops - a brick-wall implies lossy encoding.
  • Estimated effective bit depth, read from the noise floor.
  • A plain assessment: full-band / lossless-like versus likely lossy around 256 kbps.

Reference Match: does my mix sit where my genre sits?

The question every mix raises. We compare your tonal balance and loudness against a built-in genre target curve - pop, rock, hip-hop, electronic, acoustic, jazz, classical, metal, R&B, and a default - and show it as a side-by-side chart, band by band, plus how your loudness compares to the genre norm.

  • A match score and the detected versus target genre.
  • Loudness delta against the typical level for that genre.
  • A bar chart overlaying your mix against the genre target across seven frequency bands.

Three metrics we finally surfaced

We also exposed three things we were already computing but never showed. No new work for you, just numbers that were hiding.

  • Integrated Loudness (LUFS) and Loudness Range, now visible in the Dynamics tab.
  • Tempo (BPM), shown on the hero chip and in the Harmonic tab.
  • Sibilance control - a 4-10 kHz ess/sh energy read with a de-ess health score, in the Frequency tab.

Honest limits, and what is next

A note on honesty, because it matters. The bit-depth and codec calls are estimates from the audio itself, not container metadata. The loudness-over-time graph is a level envelope, not gated momentary LUFS, and it is labeled that way. Reference Match compares against genre archetypes, not a specific commercial track - yet. Uploading your own reference for a true A/B match is coming next, along with optional stem separation. None of the new modules change the headline mix score; they are informational, so your historical scores stay stable.

  • Free on every web analysis - just upload a track (MP3, WAV, FLAC, AIFF, M4A).
  • Building something? The same 21 modules are available through the API as optional modules.
  • No price change on the web. More value, same cost.

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