True Peak: The Invisible Ceiling

Your DAW says it's not clipping. Spotify says it is. Here's why True Peak matters.

Your DAW says it's not clipping. Spotify says it is. Here's why True Peak matters.

Your DAW shows sample peaks - the loudest digital sample in your file. But every DAC and resampler rebuilds the continuous waveform BETWEEN samples, and that curve can peak higher than any single sample. These inter-sample (true) peaks are already in your file; lossy conversion for streaming (AAC, Ogg Vorbis, Opus) adds extra overshoot on top. Together they can exceed 0 dBTP and distort on the listener's end - even though your meters never showed clipping.

The Speed Bump Your speedometer (DAW meter) says you're going exactly 100 km/h. But the road has bumps (codec conversion). When you hit a bump, the car briefly hits 105 - and the speed camera (streaming platform) catches it. True Peak measurement accounts for these bumps before they happen.

Tip: The usual streaming ceiling is -1 dBTP (EBU R128 uses it too), and LoudCraft switches to -2 dBTP for cinema and ATSC targets. For masters louder than -14 LUFS, Spotify advises -2 dBTP, because loud material overshoots more after encoding, and LoudCraft applies it automatically. LoudCraft's oversampled true-peak limiter catches inter-sample peaks, and lossy downloads are measured after encoding and re-encoded if needed to stay under the ceiling.

Key takeaway: LoudCraft sets the true-peak ceiling for each job automatically (-1 dBTP for streaming targets; -2 dBTP for masters louder than -14 LUFS and for cinema and ATSC targets) with an oversampled true-peak limiter. You don't need to worry about this - it's handled.