“For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for nature cannot be fooled.”
A true peak meter shows the real top level of your song, including the peaks that form between the digital samples, which a normal peak meter misses. Put one last on your master, play the loudest part, and keep True Peak Max at -1 dBTP or lower, or -2 dBTP if your master is louder than -14 LUFS, as Spotify advises.
Your master looks safe in FL Studio. The meter stops just under 0 dB, nothing flashes red, and the drop sounds clean in your headphones. Then you upload it, play it on your phone or in the car, and the loudest hits crackle a little.
Usually that isn’t your mix. It’s a peak your meter never showed you. Below you’ll learn how to read a true peak meter, which numbers Spotify, Apple, YouTube and the broadcast standards ask for, and how to fix overs in FL Studio, with screenshots from Mix Elite’s mastering videos.
Table of Contents
What is true peak?
True peak is the highest level your song really reaches once it’s turned back into a smooth sound wave, including the peaks that form between the digital samples. It’s measured in dBTP, and it can read higher than a normal peak meter shows, even above 0 dB.
A digital song isn’t a smooth wave. It’s a long list of level readings, called samples, taken 44,100 or 48,000 times every second. A normal peak meter, also called a sample peak meter, shows the loudest of those readings.
But speakers don’t play dots. A chip called a DAC (digital-to-analog converter) turns the dots back into a smooth wave. As Max, the founder of Mix Elite, explains in his loud master video, “It basically takes the dots and draws a smooth curved line between them to send to your speakers.” If two loud dots sit close to the top, the curve between them can rise above 0 dB, the highest level a digital file can hold. That’s called an inter-sample peak. It can distort.
In this frame from the video, both samples (1) sit under the 0 dB line, so a normal meter says all is fine. The real wave between them (2) goes over. That hidden top is the true peak.
A true peak meter finds it by working out the wave between the dots. The ITU-R BS.1770 standard, the rulebook loudness meters follow, does this by raising the sample rate four times, from 48 kHz to 192 kHz, and measuring that more detailed wave. The result is shown in dBTP, short for decibels true peak.
What is a peak meter, and how is true peak different?
A peak meter shows the highest level your audio reaches, moment by moment. Most DAW meters read the samples themselves, not the wave between them. FL Studio’s metering plugin, Wave Candy, has Peak, RMS, VU, PPM and loudness modes, but Image-Line’s manual lists no true peak mode. So you’re really looking at three different readings, and each one answers its own question:
- Sample peak: the loudest single sample. Most channel and master meters show this.
- True peak: the loudest point of the rebuilt wave, peaks between samples included. It reads the same as the sample peak or higher, never lower.
- Loudness (LUFS): how loud the song feels over time, not its highest point. Our guide to LUFS vs RMS explains that number.
The gap between sample peak and true peak is often a few tenths of a decibel. On loud, heavily limited masters it grows. The ITU paper even shows a sample peak meter reading some test tones about 3 dB too low when the samples land at an unlucky moment.
Why does my track distort after exporting to MP3?
Because your meter shows the samples, not the smooth wave your phone or laptop rebuilds from them, and that wave can rise above 0 dB between samples. Converting to MP3 or AAC also reshapes the wave and can add new peaks. So a master that never passed 0 dB in FL Studio can still clip once it’s converted.
If true peaks can distort, why don’t you hear it while you mix? The reason is simple: your DAW works in 32-bit float, so inside FL Studio, audio has huge room above 0 dB. Nothing breaks. The trouble only starts when the song leaves the DAW.
Two things happen out there. First, the DAC in a phone, laptop or car rebuilds the wave, and anything above 0 dB can clip. Second, streaming apps turn your WAV into a smaller file type, called a codec, such as Ogg Vorbis, AAC or MP3. Squeezing the file changes the wave a little, and new peaks can show up that weren’t there before.
That second part catches people out. In the same video, Max puts it plainly: “Your limiter, even in true peak mode, doesn’t care about MP3 or any other codec.” A true peak limiter protects the WAV file. It can’t know exactly what the codec will do later, so the official targets below leave extra room.
How to use a true peak meter, step by step
Every true peak meter works the same way. This is the routine to run at the end of every master:
- Load the meter in the last slot of your master track, after the limiter. If any plugin comes after it, the reading is wrong.
- Reset the meter so old readings don’t count.
- Play the loudest part of the song, or the whole song for a final check.
- Read True Peak Max, the highest true peak since you reset, not the bar that moves.
- If it’s above your target, lower the limiter’s ceiling or the gain going into it. Reset and play again.
- Export the song, then check the exported file too, and ideally an MP3 or AAC copy.
Read True Peak Max in FL Studio with Youlean
Mix Elite’s free 4.5-hour FL Studio course uses the free Youlean Loudness Meter 2: download it, add the VST3 to FL Studio’s plugin folder, and drop it at the very end of the mastering chain on the master track. The free version shows integrated loudness, loudness range and true peak, and it works in most other DAWs as well.
Watch three things. Integrated (1) is the loudness of everything you’ve played since the last reset, here -7.2 LUFS. True Peak Max (2) turns red when it’s over the limit. In the course it read +0.5 dB, so the song went half a decibel past 0 dB between the samples. Click the red X (3) to reset before every new pass.
Lowering the ceiling in Maximus by about half a decibel brought the next pass down to -0.1 dB. That stops the clipping. For a song going to Spotify or Apple Music, you’d go lower still, as the next section shows.
Keep the true peak meter in the last slot of your mastering template. Then every master gets checked, even on the nights you forget.
What should your true peak be? The official numbers
Keep true peak at -1 dBTP or lower, and at -2 dBTP if your master is louder than -14 LUFS. That’s Spotify’s advice. Apple asks for at least 1 dB of headroom, and Europe’s broadcast standard, EBU R 128, sets -1 dBTP as the maximum.
These are the numbers each platform publishes on its own pages. We checked every one of them on October 8, 2026, and Spotify’s again on October 12:
- Spotify: plays songs at -14 LUFS, measured with the ITU 1770 standard. It asks you to keep true peak below -1 dB, and below -2 dB if your master is louder than -14 LUFS, because louder tracks pick up more distortion when they’re converted. It says the same advice applies to lossless playback. Source: Spotify for Artists.
- Apple Music: Sound Check plays songs at about the same loudness. Apple’s mastering guide, Apple Digital Masters, recommends leaving at least 1 dB of headroom to avoid clipping, and it explains inter-sample clipping by name. The guide gives no LUFS target.
- YouTube: its help pages give no LUFS or true peak number. Stable volume evens out loud and quiet parts on regular videos, and YouTube says it’s turned off for YouTube Music and official music videos. YouTube recommends uploading AAC or Opus audio at 48 kHz.
- TV and radio (EBU R 128): Europe’s broadcast standard, EBU R 128, sets loudness at -23 LUFS and says true peak must not go over -1 dBTP.
So for music, -1 dBTP is the safe default. Loud masters need -2 dBTP. For electronic music, Mix Elite’s loud master video aims for about -8 to -6 LUFS integrated, which is far louder than -14 LUFS, so the -2 dBTP rule is the one that applies there. Our guide on mixing and mastering for streaming covers the rest of the release checklist.
How do you set a limiter so your song won’t clip on streaming?
Turn on your limiter’s true peak mode and set its ceiling to -1 dBTP, or -2 dBTP for a master louder than -14 LUFS. Put a true peak meter after it, play the loudest part, and if True Peak Max still goes over, lower the ceiling or the gain going into the limiter.
If it keeps going over, these four fixes work, from the quickest to the most careful. The video below walks through the first two, from 9:08.
1. Turn on your limiter’s true peak mode
Most modern limiters have a true peak switch. The video uses the Maximizer in iZotope Ozone. Before touching anything else, turn on True Peak (1) and set the Output Level, the ceiling, to -0.3 dB (2) as a starting point. Then raise the gain until you hear distortion, and back off.
In true peak mode the limiter looks at a more detailed version of the wave, so it catches the peaks between samples too. The video starts at -0.3 dB and checks the codec next. If you’d rather skip the guesswork, start at -1 dB, or at -2 dB for a loud master.
2. Check the MP3 and AAC version
This is the step most guides skip. Ozone’s Codec Preview plays your master as an MP3 or AAC file, the way a streaming app would. The video picks AAC (1), which it notes Spotify uses for its web player, and steps the bit rate down to 128 kbps (2). The Peak readout at the top jumps to about +1 dB, with true peak mode on and the ceiling at -0.3 dB.
That’s exactly why Spotify asks for -2 dB. With a -2 dB ceiling, the video’s master still had about half a decibel of room left after the AAC version at 128 kbps. No codec preview? Export an MP3 from FL Studio, drag it into an empty project and play it through your true peak meter.
3. In FL Studio, use Maximus
No paid limiter? FL Studio’s own Maximus does the job. Mix Elite’s free FL Studio course puts Maximus on the master, selects the MASTER band (1) and sets its CEIL knob (2), the ceiling, to -0.3 dB. Then the gain goes up until you hear distortion, and comes back down a little.
Two settings matter for true peaks. Image-Line’s manual says the Oversample option in the Maximus options menu (the small down-arrow button) also makes it respond to inter-sample peaks. And the ceiling is your safety margin: in Mix Elite’s stock-plugin mastering tutorial, it’s set to -1 dB whenever the song will be exported to MP3. Fruity Limiter has no true peak mode in its manual, so always check its output with a true peak meter.
4. Push the limiter a little less
Every decibel you push into a limiter makes sharp peaks more likely. If you keep fighting overs at -6 LUFS, try -7 and listen. Taming the sharpest drum hits with a clipper before the limiter helps too, because the limiter then has less to catch. Our guide to compression vs clipping vs limiting shows where each one goes in the chain.
Don’t judge true peak by the live bar. It jumps around every second. Only True Peak Max, after you play the loudest part of the song, tells you the real number.
Do you need to worry about true peak?
Yes, but don’t panic over a tenth of a decibel. In Mix Elite’s free FL Studio course, Max says “true peak is something you don’t have to worry about too much, but it can cause your track to hard clip when converted to an MP3 file.” That’s the real risk. As he points out, almost nobody hears your WAV, apart from maybe a DJ at a festival. People hear the converted file on a phone, in a car or on a laptop.
A quiet acoustic song with lots of room on top will rarely run into it. A loud drop pushed hard into a limiter is worth checking every single time.
The best true peak meter plugins
You don’t need to spend money to measure true peak. These three cover everything:
- Youlean Loudness Meter 2 (free): the one Mix Elite’s free FL Studio course uses. The free version shows integrated LUFS, loudness range and true peak, as VST, VST3, AU and AAX on Windows and Mac. Streaming presets are in the paid Pro version.
- iZotope Ozone: the Maximizer has a true peak mode, and Codec Preview lets you hear your master as MP3 or AAC at 8 bit rates. Mix Elite’s loud master video uses it.
- FabFilter Pro-L 2: a true peak limiter with up to 32x oversampling and loudness meters for the EBU R128, ITU-R BS.1770-4 and ATSC A/85 standards.
Whichever you pick, it goes last on the master, and you read True Peak Max, not the moving bar. True peak is one small step at the very end of the process. For the whole chain, from EQ to limiter to export, follow our guide to mastering in FL Studio.
DAY 6 OF THE 7-DAY MUSIC PRODUCER COURSE
Master your song without the hidden clipping
Day 6 of the 7-Day course is mastering: a 3-step mastering chain that makes your song loud, clear and punchy, the inter-sample clipping mistake that ruins the sound without you even knowing (plus an easy way to always avoid it), and the best export settings for streaming platforms. You also get a final mix to practice on and a mastering chain preset pack. It’s taught in FL Studio, and on day 7 a pro gives you feedback on your finished track. It’s $27, and you get 60 days to decide if it was worth it.
Frequently asked questions
What is a peak meter?
A peak meter shows the highest level your audio reaches, moment by moment, in decibels. Most DAW meters read the digital samples themselves, so they’re sample peak meters. A true peak meter also measures the peaks that form between the samples, so it reads the same or higher, and it shows the result in dBTP.
What is the difference between sample peak and true peak?
Sample peak is the highest stored sample, which is what most DAW meters show. True peak works out the real wave between the samples by oversampling, as the ITU-R BS.1770 standard describes, so it reads the same or higher. If a meter doesn’t say true peak or dBTP, it’s showing sample peak.
Why does my track distort after exporting to MP3?
Your meter reads the samples, but the wave your phone or laptop rebuilds from them can rise above 0 dB between samples, and converting to MP3 changes the wave and adds new peaks. Keep True Peak Max at -1 dBTP, or -2 dBTP for a loud master, and check an MP3 copy before you release.
How do I set my limiter so my song doesn’t clip on streaming?
Turn on the limiter’s true peak mode and set the ceiling to -1 dBTP, or -2 dBTP if your master is louder than -14 LUFS, which is Spotify’s advice. Put a true peak meter last on the master, play the loudest part, and lower the ceiling or the input gain until True Peak Max stays under your target.
What is true peak max?
True peak max is the highest true peak a meter has measured since you last reset it. In Youlean Loudness Meter it’s the box labeled TRUE PEAK MAX under the loudness readings. It’s the number you compare with your target, such as -1 dBTP, because the moving bar only shows this moment, not the loudest moment of the song.
