Created by James Rule @allthemoney

Aircheck

Hand-off

Take it on the road.

Numbers come from this take, the Shure SM7B, and a YouTube master at -14 LUFS / -1 dBTP. Paste them top-to-bottom — Zoom, Discord, Teams, OBS, YouTube. Don't also run a second suppressor on the same path.

Current desk

Shure SM7B

Gain 3.0 dB · HPF 80 Hz · 3.5:1 @ -16 dB · Presence +2.5 · Limit -1.0

Delivery YouTube · -14 LUFS · true peak -1 dB

Sit 16 cm off the capsule. Drive the preamp so loud speech peaks −12 dBFS in OBS before plugins.

YouTube

Voice-over and talking-head. YouTube only turns loud videos down.

  1. 01

    Why −14 LUFS

    YouTube normalizes toward −14 LUFS and will not boost a quiet voice. A talking-head sitting at −18 to −20 LUFS plays several dB softer than every other video in the session. Hit −14 integrated, true peak −1 dBTP.

  2. 02

    Record

    Interface input, not the loopback. Drive the preamp so loud speech peaks −12 dBFS in OBS before plugins. Loud speech around -10 dBFS before plugins. Auto-gain on the camera or phone: off.

  3. 03

    Voice chain

    High-pass 80 Hz. Compressor 3.5:1 at -16 dB, attack 8 ms, release 80 ms. Output trim 0.0 dB. Limiter -1 dB.

  4. 04

    Against picture

    Park the voice at −14 LUFS. Music bed and room tone sit 8–12 dB under spoken words so the limiter never grabs the bed. Hard-sync edits to the waveform, not the camera audio.

  5. 05

    Export

    Mux 48 kHz stereo (dual mono is fine) AAC 192 kbps or PCM in the video. Do not also enable YouTube’s ‘normalize audio’ on top of a −14 master — it will duck you.