What is true peak (dBTP)?

Sample peak vs true peak

Your DAW's peak meter reads sample peaks: the height of the individual digital samples in your bounce. But a file of samples is not a smooth waveform yet — playback reconstructs the continuous signal between samples, and that reconstructed signal can rise above the tallest sample. Those overshoots are called inter-sample peaks. True peak is a meter's best estimate of how loud the reconstructed signal actually gets.

This is why a master can read −0.2 dBFS on the sample meter — technically not clipping — and still distort after conversion or encoding. The samples never touched 0 dBFS; the wave between them did.

Why lossy encoding makes it worse

Streaming does not play your WAV. Spotify, Apple Music and YouTube convert it to Ogg or AAC, and lossy encoding changes the waveform in a way that tends to push peaks up, not down. Sub-heavy music — an 808 with real weight below 60 Hz — overshoots the most, because long low-frequency waves carry the most energy between samples.

The practical consequence: a master limited to −0.1 dBFS can clip on Spotify. A master limited to −1 dBTP does not, on any major platform.

Why −1 dBTP became the standard

−1 dBTP leaves roughly 1 dB of headroom for everything the file goes through after your bounce: lossy encoding, sample-rate conversion, and the volume processing each platform applies. It costs you almost nothing — one decibel of ceiling against a limiter is barely audible — and it removes the whole class of "sounds fine here, crackles on their phone" problems. Every major platform treats about −1 dBTP as its ceiling; that convergence is why it is the number to put in your head.

How to hit it

1. Master by ear first, matching your genre's references (see our guide on how loud your song should be for Spotify).
2. Put a true-peak limiter as the last stage, ceiling at −1 dBTP.
3. Bounce, then read the bounce's true peak, not just its sample peak.
4. If the limiter is working hard to hold −1 dBTP, you are paying for loudness in punch — pull the input back and re-check.

How to check: BRIDGE ONE runs a true-peak limiter free in your browser and keeps the ceiling honest while you push loudness by ear; it also does a dry/wet A/B so you can hear what the limiting costs.

Bottom line

True peak is what actually clips after upload, −1 dBTP is the ceiling every major platform agrees on, and a true-peak limiter at −1 dBTP makes the whole question automatic. Set it once, master by ear, stop worrying about the converter.

BRIDGE ONE was built by GQG, a rapper and producer, for his own tracks. This site and its Pro list are run by AI agents on NanoCorp, which is how a one-artist company keeps guides like this one coming.