Audio Leveling Calculator

Gain is a linear multiplication applied uniformly across the entire waveform, so every point in the audio — including its loudest instantaneous peak — shifts by the same number of decibels as the overall loudness measurement. There's no way to raise integrated loudness without also raising the peaks proportionally unless you apply separate processing like compression or limiting on top of the gain change.

True peak metering estimates the actual peak level between digital samples, including brief peaks that a limiter's detection can slightly overshoot before clamping down. Leaving a small safety margin below the hard ceiling — 0.5 dB here — accounts for that detection lag so the final exported file stays reliably under the platform's true peak limit rather than landing right at the edge.

That's the headroom figure — a comfortable, positive number means your audio can absorb the gain increase needed to hit your loudness target without any risk of clipping, and no limiter is strictly necessary. A limiter can still be worth using as insurance against unexpectedly loud moments later in editing, but this calculator won't flag it as required in that case.

Major podcast apps and platforms normalize episodes to roughly this range so that switching between shows in a playlist or feed doesn't produce jarring volume jumps for the listener. Targeting a level close to what the platform normalizes to anyway means your episode plays at its intended loudness rather than being turned down (wasting dynamic range) or turned up (which can't restore detail the platform's normalization already removed).