How to Prep a Song for Streaming

To prep a song for streaming you work in one direction: mix, then master, then check your levels, then choose a delivery file. The most common mistake is starting at the end — cranking loudness on a finished file — when the quality of the upload is decided upstream, in the bounce. This is the hands-on checklist version of that workflow, and you can do every step in the browser with the free Audio Master tool. For the deeper question of which platform loudness numbers are documented versus community-measured, this is the practical companion to preparing a song for streaming release — that post carries the full per-platform table, so this one won't repeat it.

1. Start with the mix, not the master

Everything good downstream depends on how you export the mix. The single most important habit here is leaving headroom — the empty space between your loudest peak and 0 dBFS, the digital ceiling where audio hard-clips. Aim to bounce your mix with peaks landing around -6 dBFS (decibels relative to full scale, where 0 is the maximum). That gap gives the master somewhere to work.

Getting there is a matter of gain staging: keeping a sensible signal level at every stage of your session so nothing is slammed against the ceiling by the time it reaches the mix bus. If your master fader is pinned near 0 and the meter is flickering red, turn things down at the source, not at the end.

Critically, do not put a limiter or maximizer on your mix bus before you export. It's tempting — it makes the bounce sound loud and finished — but it flattens the dynamics the mastering stage needs to shape, and it bakes in decisions you can't undo. A mix with proper headroom sounds quieter on its own, and that's correct. Export a clean, dynamic WAV with room to breathe, and let the next step do the loudness work.

2. Master for tone, not just loudness

Mastering is polish and translation — it's what makes the track hold up across earbuds, laptops, and car speakers. If you're fuzzy on where mixing ends and mastering begins, mastering vs mixing draws the line cleanly, and what audio mastering is covers the fundamentals.

Load your headroom-rich bounce into the Audio Master tool. It runs a real DSP chain locally in your browser — a high-pass filter, a 5-band EQ, 3-band multiband compression, mid/side stereo width, an output trim, and a limiter, in that order. Because your audio never leaves your device, there's no upload wait and no account. The tool accepts MP3, WAV, FLAC, and M4A up to five minutes, and exports WAV (lossless, the right choice here), MP3, or Opus.

One design detail matters. The output trim sits before the limiter, so as you push toward a loudness target you're driving the limiter like a real hardware chain would — shaping the signal into the ceiling — rather than just turning the whole thing up into a wall. It also gives you a level-matched A/B: the before and after are volume-matched so you're judging tone, not falling for the "louder just sounds better" reflex that fools everyone.

Be honest with yourself about one limitation. The tool's limiter is a standard dynamics limiter with a ceiling around -1 dB — it clamps sample values, it does not predict inter-sample (true-peak) overshoots. That's fine for the great majority of tracks, but it's why the next step exists as a separate check. Walkthrough details live in how to master a song online free.

3. Set your loudness target and check true peak

Two numbers decide whether your master is streaming-ready.

Integrated LUFS (Loudness Units relative to Full Scale) is a measure of perceived loudness averaged across the whole song — it's how streaming services judge how loud your track "feels." True peak (dBTP) is the highest level the signal actually reaches when reconstructed into sound between samples, which can be higher than any single sample value — that's the overshoot a plain limiter misses. See what LUFS is for the full picture.

Run your master through the Volume Normalizer. It measures integrated LUFS (ITU-R BS.1770-4, the broadcast loudness standard) and true peak in dBTP, before and after, on the file you already have. A sensible general target is around -14 LUFS integrated with a -1 dBTP ceiling — comfortable for most streaming and safe against clipping. The tool ships presets for Spotify (-14), YouTube (-14), Apple Music (-16), and a louder Club/Loud (-9) option, and uses a -1 dBTP clip-safe ceiling.

The part worth remembering: streaming platforms normalize playback loudness, so mastering louder than the target gains you nothing — the platform just turns you back down, and you've spent your dynamics for nothing. How streaming loudness normalization works explains the mechanism, and the loudness war explains why chasing the meter is a losing game. For the platform-by-platform breakdown of which targets are official versus measured, defer to the streaming release guide.

4. Choose your delivery format and sample rate

Deliver the highest-quality file your distributor accepts. In practice that means lossless WAV (or FLAC) where it's supported — the platform will transcode to its own streaming codec anyway, so you want to hand it the cleanest possible source. A high-bitrate MP3 is an acceptable fallback if that's all you have, but never master to MP3 and then convert up; the quality lost to lossy encoding doesn't come back.

Keep your master at its native sample rate — the number of audio snapshots per second, typically 44.1 or 48 kHz. Don't upsample. Converting 44.1 kHz up to 96 kHz adds no real detail; it just makes a bigger file and invites resampling artifacts. Let the platform handle its own conversion. If you do need to change containers — say, WAV to FLAC to save space without losing quality — the Audio Converter handles MP3, WAV, FLAC, OGG, M4A, AAC, and Opus in the browser. For a refresher on why these numbers matter, see the quick guide to audio sample rates. And if your true-peak check flagged overshoots, what audio clipping is explains the distortion you're guarding against.

5. Final pre-upload QC pass

Before you hit upload, run down a quick sanity list on the actual file you're about to submit:

• Mono compatibility — collapse the mix to mono and confirm nothing vanishes or gets hollow (a phase problem you want to catch now, not on someone's phone speaker).
• No clipping — the true-peak reading sits at or below -1 dBTP.
• Start, end, and fades — no clicks at the top, no abrupt cut at the tail, fades land where you intended.
• Right file, right sample rate — you're uploading the mastered lossless export, not the rough bounce, and at its native rate.
• Loudness, one last read — re-check integrated LUFS on the final file so what you upload is what you measured.

Common mistakes

• Mastering to fix a mix. Mastering is polish, not repair. If the low end is muddy or a vocal is buried, fix it in the mix and re-bounce — no output stage rescues a broken balance.
• Cranking loudness anyway. Because playback is normalized, a hyper-loud master just gets turned down with its dynamics already gone. Hit the target and stop.
• Upsampling. A higher sample-rate number on the file doesn't mean more quality. Keep it native.
• Ignoring true peak. A track can read below 0 dBFS on a sample meter and still overshoot between samples once it's decoded. Check dBTP, aim for -1, and give yourself margin.

Frequently asked questions

What LUFS should I master to for streaming?

Around -14 LUFS integrated is a solid general target that suits most streaming services, paired with a -1 dBTP true-peak ceiling. Because platforms normalize playback loudness, mastering louder than this gains you nothing — you'll simply be turned back down, having spent your dynamic range. For exact per-platform figures and which are officially documented, see the streaming release guide.

Do I need to master before uploading to Spotify?

You don't strictly have to, but you should. Spotify accepts your file as-is, and an unmastered mix will sound thinner and less consistent across devices than mastered tracks around it. A light mastering pass for tone and a controlled loudness target makes your song translate better everywhere. You can do it free in the browser with the Audio Master tool.

WAV or MP3 for streaming upload?

Upload WAV (or FLAC) whenever your distributor accepts it. The platform transcodes to its own streaming format regardless, so you want to hand it the cleanest lossless source rather than a file that's already lost quality to MP3 encoding. Reserve high-bitrate MP3 as a fallback, and never convert a lossy file up to WAV expecting it to improve.

Why does my song sound quieter on streaming than the reference?

Almost always loudness normalization. Streaming services measure each track's integrated LUFS and adjust playback so everything sits at a similar level. A commercial reference mastered louder gets turned down to match yours, so the gap you hear in your DAW mostly disappears on the platform. Match the target and focus on tone, not raw level.

Can I prep a song for streaming for free in the browser?

Yes — the whole workflow runs client-side with no account and no upload. Master with the Audio Master tool, read your integrated LUFS and true peak with the Volume Normalizer, and change file formats with the Audio Converter. These are DSP tools that process locally, so your audio never leaves your device and there's no signup or waiting on a server.