Ask ten producers how loud a master should be and you will hear the same recycled answers. Minus fourteen for Spotify. As loud as possible for the club. Whatever the limiter allows. Most of it is folklore, passed from forum to forum, years out of date.
Here is the uncomfortable truth: there is no universal number. There is a number per genre, and it comes from the releases themselves, not from opinion.
Why the minus fourteen myth will not die
Streaming platforms normalize playback around minus fourteen LUFS. From that fact grew the myth that you should master to minus fourteen. The logic sounds reasonable and it is wrong for one simple reason: your demo is not judged by Spotify's algorithm. It is judged by a human A&R comparing your track, consciously or not, against their own catalog.
If that catalog slams at minus seven integrated and your demo arrives at minus fourteen, your track sounds half as present as everything the label put out this year. The A&R will not think “smart streaming strategy.” They will think “unfinished.”
Master for the inbox you are sending to. The streaming version can be its own export later.
The measured targets
These are integrated LUFS ranges measured from recent releases across the label profiles in the SIGNR database, per genre lane.
| Genre lane | Mastered (LUFS) | Unmastered mix (LUFS) |
|---|---|---|
| Mainstage | -6 | -12 |
| Bass House | -7 | -12 |
| Progressive House (Festival) | -7 | -12.5 |
| Hard Techno | -7 | -12 |
| Bass Music | -7 | -12 |
| Electro House | -7 | -12 |
| Future Rave | -7 | -12 |
| Tech House | -8 | -14 |
| Techno | -8 | -13 |
| Trance | -8 | -13 |
| Psy-Trance | -8 | -13 |
| Future House | -8 | -13 |
| Drum & Bass | -8 | -13 |
| Dance Pop / Crossover | -8 | -13 |
| House | -9 | -14 |
| Progressive / Minimal House | -9 | -14 |
| Melodic Techno | -9 | -14 |
| Minimal / Deep Tech | -9 | -14 |
| Nu Disco / Disco | -9 | -14 |
| UK Garage | -9 | -14 |
| Deep House | -10 | -15 |
| Afro House | -10 | -15 |
| Organic House | -10 | -15 |
Measured from release data, July 2026.
Two things stand out in the data. The spread between genres is real: a deep, hypnotic lane and a mainstage lane can sit multiple LUFS apart, which means one universal target guarantees you miss at least one of them. And the ranges are tighter than producers expect. Labels have a sound, and loudness is part of it.
Louder is not the assignment
Before you push your limiter to reach a number, one warning from the other side of the meter.
Loudness and quality are different measurements. A master can hit the genre target and be crushed lifeless, and a slightly quieter master with punch and headroom reads as more professional every time. Crest factor, the distance between your peaks and your average level, is what makes a loud master feel powerful instead of flat.
So the order of operations matters. Get the mix right first. Then raise the master until it sits in the lane for your genre. If it starts to fall apart before it gets there, the mix was not ready, and no limiter fixes that.
The takeaway
Stop asking “how loud should a master be.” Start asking “how loud is this lane.” The first question has no answer. The second one is measurable, and now you have the measurements.
Match your lane, keep your punch, and let the streaming platforms do their own math. For the full genre-by-genre breakdown, see the loudness reference in the Playbook.
SIGNR measures your track's loudness against the actual target for your genre and tells you the gap in dB. Free first check at signr.live.
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