How to deliver at the loudness a platform expects

Last updated 2026-09-04 · 7 min read

What is the short version?

Platforms turn your video up or down to their own level. Deliver quiet and it gets lifted, bringing the room noise with it; deliver loud and it gets squashed. Hitting the number yourself is how you keep control of what it sounds like.

1. Go to Vizard Agent with the cut.
2. Say the loudness target and the true-peak ceiling.
3. Say it applies to every episode, not just this one.

What do you need before you start?

The cut and two numbers. Those numbers come from wherever you are delivering to — a platform, a broadcaster, a client's own spec — and they are yours to supply rather than Vizard Agent's to guess, because they differ by destination and they change over time.

• The cut. Mixed, but not mastered.
• The loudness target. The average level.
• The peak ceiling. A separate constraint.
• Where it goes. Platforms differ.
• The rest of the series. So they match each other.

What do you type into Vizard Agent?

Give Vizard Agent both numbers rather than one. An average level with no peak ceiling lets a single loud moment clip the delivery; a peak ceiling with no average target produces a file that is technically safe and audibly quiet in a feed.

Prompt

Variants worth knowing:

• "Speech and music separately." The measurement that matters.
• "True peak below X." The second constraint.
• "All the episodes." Consistency across the series.

What does Vizard Agent actually do?

Here is the order Vizard Agent worked in on a real branded podcast series whose brief specified normalised master audio across every episode. Step four is the one that reads as excessive on paper and turns out not to be, because it is what stops the whole set being mastered to a wrong number.

1. Measures the loudness of the music on its own.
2. Measures the loudness of the speech and the music together.
3. Mixes the sound for the first segments.
4. Measures the speech loudness a second way to cross-check the first.
5. Mixes with proper loudness control rather than a flat gain.
6. Checks the peak levels against the ceiling.
7. Fixes the peaks that exceeded it.
8. Mixes the sound for all eight segments to the same settings.
9. Balances a new speaker who sat differently in the mix.
10. Re-checks the levels after that change.
11. Measures the loudness again before uploading.
12. Masters the audio and muxes the final cut.

Step four is worth copying. Loudness measurement depends on what you include — a long musical tail, a silent gap, an intro — and two methods disagreeing by a couple of units means the number you were about to normalise to was the wrong one.

Step nine is the part that only appears in a series. A guest who records quieter than the host will sit correctly in that episode and wrongly against the others, so the balance is set per speaker and the target is held across the set.

What does the result look like?

A master that arrives at exactly the level you specified, with no peak anywhere above the ceiling you set, and every episode in the series sitting at the same level as the others rather than drifting up and down between them.

The audible difference is that the platform stops adjusting it. A file delivered at the target is played as you mixed it, which is the whole reason to bother with the number.

When does this not work well?

Normalising to a number does not improve a recording at all; it only sets its level. Where the source is noisy or already damaged, hitting the target makes those existing problems louder rather than better, and Vizard Agent will say so rather than quietly deliver a louder fault.

• Noisy recordings. Lifting the level lifts the noise.
• Already-clipped source. The distortion is baked in.
• Very dynamic content. Music and speech want different targets.
• Specs that changed. Platform numbers move; check yours.
• A mix that is wrong. Balance first, master second.

How do you fix a result that came back wrong?

Give Vizard Agent the number you actually wanted rather than a description of the problem. It keeps every measurement, the per-segment settings and the peak analysis from the first pass, so a different target becomes a re-master of the same measured material rather than a re-mix of the video.

• "Still too quiet." Re-mastered to a higher target.
• "It is pumping." Loudness control eased; peaks held another way.
• "Episode three is louder." Re-measured and matched to the set.
• "The music is squashed." Balanced before mastering, not during.

How does Vizard Agent compare to doing it yourself?

By hand this needs a meter and the discipline to use it on every deliverable. Most people mix by ear, export, and find out how it sounds when they scroll past it in a feed the next day.

Common questions

What number should I use? Whatever your destination specifies. Vizard Agent cannot know your spec.

What is the difference between loudness and peak? Loudness is the average over time; peak is the single loudest instant. Both matter.

Why measure speech separately? Because a music-heavy section can carry the average while the voice sits too low.

Will it make my video louder? Vizard Agent takes it to the level you named, which may be either direction.

Can it match my last episode? Yes. Vizard Agent measures that file and matches the new one to it.

Does it fix noisy audio? No. Vizard Agent will tell you when raising the level raises the noise with it.

What is a true peak ceiling? A limit on the loudest instant after conversion. Vizard Agent holds it where you say.

Can it do a whole series at once? Yes, and that is where Vizard Agent saves the most work.

Will it change the balance I approved? No, unless you ask. Mastering sets the level, not the mix.

Does music need a different target? Often. Say so and Vizard Agent treats the sections differently.

Can it report the numbers? Yes. Ask Vizard Agent for the measurements alongside the file.

What if two measurements disagree? Vizard Agent tells you and says which one it used.

Should I master before or after captions? Either, but have Vizard Agent master once the edit is locked.

Does it handle a silent opening? Yes. Vizard Agent excludes silence rather than letting it drag the average down.

What about mono versus stereo? Say which you deliver. Vizard Agent measures the layout you are shipping.

Why not just turn it up? Because a flat gain moves the peaks with the average, and one loud laugh then clips the whole delivery.