# How to Master a Jazz Track (Keep the Dynamics) > Jazz is the genre where loudness does the most damage. The target that preserves the performance, what to leave alone, and the one move worth making. [All guides](/blog) # How to Master a Jazz Track (Keep the Dynamics) Published 22 August 2026, 15:00 UTC · updated 12 August 2026, 21:30 UTC · by Loopin Jazz is the genre where the standard mastering instinct is most wrong. The dynamics are the performance — flatten them and you have removed the music, not polished it. ## Target −16 to −18 LUFS and stop Acoustic jazz sits comfortably between −16 and −18 LUFS integrated. That is quieter than almost everything else and it is correct: streaming normalisation raises quiet material toward the same playback level anyway, so you keep your dynamic range and lose nothing. Pushing a jazz record to −10 costs you the difference between a brush and a rimshot, which is most of what a listener is there for. [Mastering at a quiet target](/mastering) and comparing level-matched against a louder attempt makes the loss obvious inside one chorus. ## Leave the crest factor alone The gap between peak and average level is unusually large in jazz, and it should stay that way. If your limiter is showing more than about a decibel of reduction on the loudest hits, you are trading the thing that makes the recording feel live for a number nobody sees. One decibel of limiting on the peaks and nothing else is a complete mastering chain for a lot of jazz. Doing less is a legitimate decision, not a failure to work. ## The one EQ move worth making Room resonance. Live acoustic recordings almost always have one or two narrow build-ups somewhere between 150 and 400 Hz from the room itself. A narrow cut of 1–2 dB at the offending frequency clears the mix without touching the tone of anything. Find it by sweeping a narrow boost until one note in the bass or piano jumps out disproportionately, then cut there. This is surgical and it is different from broad tonal shaping, which acoustic material usually does not need. ## Do not fix the balance between instruments If the piano is quiet in the second chorus, that is often the player, and it is often intentional. Mastering compression applied hard enough to even it out will also pull the room noise up between phrases, which sounds far worse than the imbalance did. Genuine balance problems go back to the mix. Everything else is a performance and should be left alone. ## Ceiling at −1 dBTP and check the quietest passage The ceiling is the same as everywhere — −1 dBTP so lossy encoding does not push peaks above full scale on playback. Then listen to the quietest passage on a phone speaker with background noise around you. If the brushes vanish, that is worth knowing; it is not necessarily worth fixing, because the fix costs the record its dynamics and most of your listeners are not on a phone in a café. ## Frequently asked questions ### What LUFS should jazz be mastered to? Between -16 and -18 LUFS integrated. Streaming normalisation raises quiet material toward the same playback level, so a quiet master keeps its dynamics and loses nothing in perceived loudness. ### How much limiting on a jazz master? About one decibel on the loudest peaks, and nothing else. Beyond that you are trading the difference between a brush and a rimshot, which is most of what the listener is there for. ### What EQ does a jazz recording usually need? Usually one narrow cut of 1-2 dB somewhere between 150 and 400 Hz to remove a room resonance. Find it by sweeping a narrow boost until one note jumps out, then cut there. Broad tonal shaping is rarely needed. ## Related reads - [Master your track free](/mastering) - [How to master an acoustic song](/blog/how-to-master-an-acoustic-song) - [What is dynamic range?](/blog/what-is-dynamic-range-in-music) --- Source: https://onloopin.com/blog/how-to-master-a-jazz-track