What it shows
- Integrated: the loudness of the whole song so far. This is the number streaming services turn your track up or down by.
- Short-term: the loudness of the last 3 seconds, part by part.
- Momentary: the last 400 ms, every hit and drop.
- True Peak: the highest peak, including the peaks between samples that can clip after your file is converted.
- Peak: the sample peak of left and right, like the meters in your DAW.
- LRA (Loudness Range): how far the quiet and loud parts of the song lie apart.
- PSR: how much the peaks rise above the short-term loudness. Under 5, the mix is squashed.
How to read it
The big number is Integrated. Next to it MasterBar says how far you are from your target, in words: "2.3 LU below your −14 target". The bars turn red where a value goes over: Integrated over your target, true peak over your limit, a sample peak at 0 dBFS.
Your target
Choose the loudness to aim for: −16 (Apple Music), −14 (Spotify, Tidal, Amazon Music), −13 (YouTube), or −10, −8 and −6 for loud masters. Set the true peak limit from −2 to +2 dBTP. Not sure what to aim for? See how loud your master should be.
Settings
- Meters: choose which readouts to show. A tall bar shows each as a bar, a low bar as numbers.
- Reset on Play: start over each time Live starts playing.
- Reset After Silence: start over after 10 seconds of silence.
- Copies: press Command-D for a second meter with other readouts.
Accurate
MasterBar measures to ITU-R BS.1770-4 and EBU R 128: K-weighting, gating at −70 LUFS and 10 LU below, true peak with 8x oversampling and Loudness Range as EBU Tech 3342 defines it. It passes the EBU test signals.
Questions
- Why is my integrated loudness different from another meter? Integrated and LRA cover everything since the last reset. Two meters only agree when they measure the same stretch: reset both and play from the same point.
- Does it measure Live's master? Yes, what Live sends to your outputs, after every plugin on the master.