What is LRA? Loudness range, explained.
Loudness range (LRA) tells you how far the quiet parts of a track sit below the loud ones, in LU. It separates a flat master from one that moves, and it doesn't care about peaks at all.
BY OKAN ÇAM · UPDATED
THE SHORT VERSION
- LRA measures the spread of a track's loudness over time, in loudness units (LU).
- It's calculated from 3-second short-term loudness values, gated, between the 10th and 95th percentiles.
- It describes the big moves: verse against chorus, intro against drop. It says nothing about transients or punch.
- A low LRA doesn't mean over-compressed, and a high LRA doesn't mean dynamic.
- There's no correct LRA for music. Compare with references in the same style.
- For speech and broadcast, a lower LRA is easier to follow in a car or on a train.
How loudness range is calculated
LRA is defined in EBU Tech 3342, a companion to the EBU R128 loudness recommendation. The recipe:
- 01Measure short-term loudness, a 3-second window, continuously across the whole file.
- 02Drop every window below −70 LUFS. That's silence.
- 03Drop every window more than 20 LU below the average of what's left: fade-outs, room tone and passages too quiet to carry the programme.
- 04Sort what remains. LRA is the distance between the 10th percentile and the 95th percentile.
The percentiles are the clever part. Ignoring the top 5% means one loud hit or a single explosive chorus can't stretch the range. Ignoring the bottom 10% keeps a long quiet intro or a fade from taking over. What's left is the range the listener spends most of the track in.
The relative gate here is 20 LU, not the 10 LU used for integrated loudness, so LRA keeps more of the quiet material than an integrated reading does.
What LRA doesn't tell you
LRA works on 3-second averages, so it can't see anything faster. A drum hit, a transient, a limiter clamping down on the kick: all of that happens in milliseconds, well inside one window. That's why LRA and punch are different things:
- A heavily limited song with a quiet piano intro can show an LRA of 8 LU or more, because the intro and the chorus are far apart, even though every chorus is a brick.
- An open, punchy groove played at one steady level can show 3 LU, because its loudness barely changes from bar to bar, even though every hit has room.
For how hard a track is limited, look at PSR and PLR. LRA answers "does the song move?", PSR answers "does it hit?".
Typical LRA values
Treat these as rough observations from released music, not targets. Material varies, and a single track can sit well outside its genre's range.
| Material | Typical LRA |
|---|---|
| Pop, EDM, hip-hop | About 3–7 LU |
| Rock, indie, singer-songwriter | About 5–10 LU |
| Jazz, acoustic, soundtrack | About 8–15 LU |
| Classical, film mixes | 15 LU and up |
| Podcasts and speech | Often 3–8 LU |
How to use LRA in a mix or master
- Compare with references. Measure two or three released tracks you like in the same style. If yours reads 5 LU and theirs read 9, your verses and choruses may be too close together.
- Check what your bus processing did. Measure before and after. If LRA drops from 9 to 4, the processing flattened the arrangement, not just the peaks.
- For speech, lower is kinder. A high LRA means listeners in a car or on a train keep reaching for the volume. Level the voice first, then compress.
- For film and TV, read the spec. Some delivery specs set a maximum LRA for particular programmes.
- Use whole files. A clip a few seconds long doesn't have enough 3-second windows for LRA to mean much.
Measure LRA
The online analyzer reports LRA next to integrated, short-term and momentary loudness, using the Tech 3342 method. The waveform above the results shows where the loud and quiet sections are, so you can see what the number describes.
FAQ
What is LRA in audio?
LRA, loudness range, measures how much a track's loudness varies over time, in loudness units (LU). It's defined in EBU Tech 3342 and calculated from 3-second short-term loudness values.
What is a good LRA for music?
There's no single good value. Loud pop and electronic masters often measure around 3 to 7 LU, while jazz, acoustic and classical recordings are often much higher. Compare with references in your style.
Does a low LRA mean my master is over-compressed?
Not on its own. LRA measures changes between sections over several seconds, not transients. A dense but steady track can have a low LRA and still punch. PSR and PLR are better measures of how hard it's limited.
What's the difference between LRA and dynamic range?
LRA is a standardized measure of how loudness varies between sections. Dynamic range is a loose term used for many things, from peak-to-loudness ratio to the gap between the loudest and quietest signal a system can handle.
How long does a file need to be to measure LRA?
Long enough for many 3-second windows. On a clip of a few seconds, LRA means very little. Measure whole songs or programmes.
Keep reading
Spotify LUFS
What −14 LUFS means, the Loud, Normal and Quiet settings, and how loud to master for Spotify.
Apple Music LUFS
Sound Check, the −16 LUFS level, AAC and lossless, and what they mean for your master.
YouTube Loudness
YouTube turns loud videos down and never turns quiet ones up. How to read content loudness.
SoundCloud LUFS
No normalization, so louder is louder. Why true peak matters more on SoundCloud than anywhere.
True Peak vs Sample Peak
Why a master that peaks at 0 dBFS can still clip, and why −1 dBTP is the number everyone quotes.
PLR and PSR
Peak-to-loudness and peak-to-short-term ratio: how hard is your master limited?
Why Meters Show Different LUFS
Same file, different numbers? The four setup mistakes behind almost every mismatch.
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