Cheers Toby, I would add Audacity to the list, which has an inbuilt level monitor. Itās open source so free.
Available for Windows / Linux /Mac
Iāll check out the videos, Iām never sure if Iām aiming for peak -14dB or average / hovering around -14?
I would say that should be the average for YouTube but other streaming services differ level wise. Spotify (not that I use it) seems to be the same as YT at -14db (at the moment). The True Peak limit should stop any overall clipping and I think YT will dial down volume if its too hot. But as the video says YT does not increase DB like other platforms (Spotify) so getting as close as you can is the target.
I havenāt yet put much thought into this aside from just preventing clipping & setting levels between vox & guitar. Preventing clipping at the Focusrite and then preventing clipping in my DAW.
Whatās the logic behind the -16, -14, -6 that you mentioned? And how do you factor in dynamics changes, e.g. when you have quiet parts of a song and loud parts?
Thatās a little difficult to judge because the meters in Audacity are simple dB meters, which show the instantaneous value.
Most recording apps, like Audacity, and all full DAWs have these as a minimum.
These.are, however, different from LUFS meters. LUFS metering is a standard used to measure perceived loudness, and which involves some signal processing to compute the value. Itās the standard used by YouTube, and most streaming services these days.
Thereās no direct and easy translation between simple dB and LUFS metering, so using dB meters will involve a fair bit of guesswork.
It might be best to get one of the meters Toby suggests and use them to give you more useful values.
Otherwise, I believe Audacity has an RMS meter option. Use that and focus on the RMS values, which will be better than using the instantaneous or peak values.
Cheers,
Keith
Cheers Keith will check those out.
JK
This video will make more sense of that where there is reference to the loudness levels, used by Spotify https://artists.spotify.com/en/help/article/loudness-normalization
YouTube would appear to use similar values from what I have seen on various sites.
I was going to include it above but thought it might muddy the waters.
The difference is, Spotify (and others) will raise or lower loudness for consistency but YT will only cap if too loud, not raise. So aim for an Integrated LUFS setting of -14 if uploading to YouTube. I use -16 for wriggle room and also that I can come in a little hot on the OMs because of the style I tend to play or in the last case knowing I was going to let rip on the vox at the end of Turn and I was clipping at the higher level.
Canāt quite remember the source for the optimum YT db level of -6. It was either mentioned here years ago but also in one of Kenny Gioiaās Reaper Mania videos. Iāll see what I can find on that one.
The OM X video is showing -2.9db on the Nerd Stats, so I might create an MP3 version and drop it into Youlean LM and see what the stats are for the whole show. That could give us a better target for the future, assuming @adi_mrok did not tweak the audio levels on the Zoom video before posting ?
Hope that helps a little more.
Cheers
Toby
Spot on Keith, using the Integrated LUFS metric made things a lot simpler and quicker to achieve a good baseline to start from.
Not this time around, on all recordings perhaps twice I needed to fiddle with levels.
Thanks for confirm Adi.
I dropped an MP3 version of the show into the Youlean Loudness Meter and saw some interesting results. Across the whole show we averaged -17.3 Integrated LUFS, so a little down on the optimum -14 LUFS for YouTube.
But what is interesting is the number of occurrences, when the Max True Peak was exceeded. Ideally this should be below -1db but we average -0.1db. So you peeps are hot !
The screenshot shows the whole show and that True Peak clipping is shown by the red bars at the top of the screen. Each time that happens we are likely to get pops, crackles and distortion, as explained the the videos above. So it may be thatās what we have put down to bandwidth causing audio break up, could just be that we are too hot now and then. Iāll do some DAW comparisons on this and see if the peak clips match with my audio break up on the night.
I found this in relation to the YT Nerd Stats, which kind of half explains what is going on.
Move the volume slide on the YT page and the Volume/Normalized levels will change accordingly. But it still does not explain what a negative or positive db value means ie is the sound short of YTs optimum level or above? Remember YT does not adjust loudness/volume up only down. So I am trying find that answer next.
The first part of this stat is simple. The volume shows where the volume slider currently is as a percentage, with 0% being all the way to the left, and 100% being all the way to the right. The second part of this stat is a little trickier to explain, however.
āNormalizedā refers to the normalisation of the audio, which is how YouTube protects your ears from drastic volume variation in a video. Think of this as an adjustment. If the normalised volume is 80%, then you turning the volume down to half will make the actual volume 40%, rather than 50%.
The final stat here is the ācontent loudnessā value, which refers to your videos loudness level in comparison to YouTubeās reference level. The reference level is how YouTube ensures that there are no dramatic differences between different videos on their platform, which would be jarring to anyone who is just enjoying a bit of downtime and letting YouTube take the wheel with regards to what they are watching.
It is this value that is used to determine the normalisation amount, as YouTube attempts to bring this video in line with their reference volume. This value will not change based on any action taken by you, such as moving the volume slider. In fact, it is fixed at the point of upload, and would only change if the video was edited to adjust the volume, or YouTube changed their reference volume.
Thanks Toby, really comprehensive and useful, appreciate the time youāve put into posting this!
Ok I have managed to find a better explanation here.
The final value is the ācontent loudnessā value, and indicates the difference between YouTubeās estimate of the loudness and their reference playback level. This value is fixed for each clip, and isnāt affected by the Volume slider.
So for example a reading of 6dB means your video is 6dB louder than YouTubeās reference level, and a 50% normalization adjustment (-6dB) will be applied to compensate. Whereas a negative reading of -3dB, say, means itās 3 dB lower in level than YouTubeās reference, and no normalization will be applied, so the normalization percentage will always be 100% of the Volume sliderās value - YouTube doesnāt turn up quieter videos.
Finally a good video from Kenny Gioia using in YouLean LM in your DAW in his case Reaper but should apply to all DAWs. So this could be useful for folks mixing multi tracks and not just prepping for Open Mics. Mr P may have shared this in the past but relevant to this thread.
I have given up on the chase as to why the Nerd Stat of -6 db Loudness level was recommended in YouTube but it was banded around some years back. But these platforms are changing all the time, so it may well be redundant. Certainly if you hit that figure your YT post or OM audio will have a pretty good sound level but you would have some scope to push a little louder. But if you see a positive number, best to dial it back below zero.
Anyway, plenty of stats, figures and tech info for those who like that stuff but at the end of the day a simple Loudness Meter like the one from Youlean, should mean you can optimise your levels for posting or live performances much quicker - with out the constant need for YT uploads and constant stat checks (which I did in the past).
Hope all this helps.
Toby
Full nerd mode engaged, going in!
Cheers Toby 
I found that page really good - and much quicker to skim an article for info than watch videos 
. Learned about the āstats for nerdsā on youtube videos to work out if itās been normalised or not.
Thereās this page on the same website as well, he gives more advice on how to do loudness levels: How loud ? The simple solution to optimizing playback volume online - and everywhere else - Production Advice.
This bit being the main takeaway for me: "Master no louder than -10 LUFS short-term at the loudest moments (with [True Peaks no higher than -1])"
Iāve downloaded that Youlean plugin and can now check this stuff in future, thanks Toby.
A good article JK. I think if we had been able to put a -1 or -2 db limiter on the shows audio, all those clips on the screenshot would have been avoided. Interestingly, I just drop the OM MP3 into https://www.loudnesspenalty.com/ and the Spotify reading came out bang on the money at 0.0 db. And given YT and Spotify have an ILUFS level of -14 it was spot on for YT.
Excellent write-up, Toby.
This was news to me. I have used YouLean before and never realised it ran as a standalone. I thought it ran only as a vst in either my DAW or in OBS. That was why I opted for Orban.
I agree with you, YouLean is the better choice, if only for the histogram and ability to review the graph and pick up the moments that exceeded the True Peak threshold.
So I decided to give it a quick test run and run my YT upload through YouLean. That was easy enough.
But the results were surprising. Given the Stats for Nerds result of around -3.5dB I expected Integrated LUFS in the region of -16 to -14. But it was way way softer. Turn on Orban and I see what I expected.
Then I started to fiddle with the volume level on the headphones and that appeared to change the levels in YouLean. That makes no sense to me. Note that I only have the free version.
So some tinkering is going to be required to make sense of that ā¦ something for another day.
And I should add, the key for me, is to meter the integrated output of OBS. It is helpful to meter individual sound sources but mostly what I want is a view of the final mix. It is a pity that OBS does not show the master mix anyway and allow one to apply filters to that, like one would in a DAW like Reaper.
Maybe YouLean will work better if itās audio source is whatever the OBS monitor output is set to be? My expectation would be for Orban and YouLean to be similar.
Or maybe, my brain is still in power-saving mode?
I quite agree, which is effectively what I am doing when using the Xenyx AI for the ASIO Input Capture. Although I can test each āinputā individually to get a base setting, when played in realtime, vox/pa, gtr/Pod and Trio/Bass n Drums, its all presented from the Xenyx as a single stereo output. That way I get to see the whole picture. The UMC1820 would give me individual AIC ātracksā in OBS and I would have to guesstimate how the sum of the inputs equates to the single OBS output. The only way to get round that is to then run Youlean in standalone on the desktop, so it picks up the OBS output from the soundcard. ie what is sent to the PC speakers/headphones. That sounds right in theory but yet to test, as I will hit latency issues using the UMC. However, it could be tested with pre-recorded tracks in Reaper and use them as the AIC for OBS. But life is then getting complicated again.
But I could monitor the UMCs dry mix so I am latency free and Youlean run in standalone should get the delayed āwetā PC output. So good enough to monitor maybe ?
Re volume fiddle, was that via the Scarlett ? Seems a bit odd that it would raise the Luffs, so yet another mystery.
After a few weeks off, I need to get back into basic playing before exploring this rabbit hole again. All this can wait and for you too my friend !
Cheers
Toby
@DavidP. Put that Klingon dictionary away! You need rest!
@TheMadman_tobyjenner. Donāt encourage him! 
I was hoping heād take notice of my last comment !! 
Iām getting plenty of rest Gordon, thanks. Iām making sure not to over-do anything but sitting up and watching YT or sitting up and being on my PC are pretty much the same deal. And when I feel the need for a power nap then I grab one.
the one thing that really has to wait is singing and picking up the electric. Otherwise, I feel strong and quite able to do things.
I forgot that you have that UMC mixer in your chain, which does make a difference to the setup.
I will wait until I am setting up to record or stream again and try out the standalone YouLean meter. Not inclined to fiddle with that at the moment.
