Guides

Mastering AI-made R&B / Soul tracks: the numbers Burnish uses

Updated 2026-09-06

Every genre profile in Burnish is a set of numbers, not a mood. This page lists the ones the engine uses for R&B / Soul, so you can see what a master will aim for before you run one, and check the report against it afterwards.

Loudness targets

• Streaming: -10.5 LUFS integrated, true peak -1.0 dBTP. The default.
• YouTube: -11.0 LUFS. YouTube only turns tracks down, so this sits a little under the streaming target to keep headroom after the platform's own normalization.
• Dynamic: -13.0 LUFS. More crest, more air between hits, for listeners on good systems.

These are targets for the integrated loudness of the finished file. The limiter is true-peak aware and holds every preset at or under -1.0 dBTP, measured after the fact at four times oversampling.

Tone: the profile's own moves

Before the measured repair, the R&B / Soul profile applies its signature: a low shelf at 60 Hz, +1.3 dB, a bell at 350 Hz, -0.7 dB, a high shelf at 9.0 kHz, +0.9 dB. On top of that, the engine measures your file against the genre's spectral target and corrects the difference, capped at 3.0 dB of boost and 4.0 dB of cut per band, so a strange file cannot push the EQ into something extreme.

Low end and width

• Bass mono below 90 Hz. Everything under that frequency is centered, so the kick and bass sum cleanly on club systems and cut to vinyl without trouble. It can be switched off in the settings for a deliberately wide low end.
• Width target -6.0 dB side against mid, adjusted by at most 2.5 dB from where your file starts. Air is added to the sides (+1.2 dB) and presence to the center (+0.6 dB).
• Rumble filter at 20 Hz.

Dynamics

Multiband compression across 4 bands, firm pressure: ratios from 1.6:1 to 2.3:1, never more than 3.5 dB of gain reduction in any band. The crest factor target is 10.5 dB, which is how much punch the master keeps after it reaches the loudness target. Saturation adds 1.5 dB of drive at a 25% blend for density without an obvious edge.

Sibilance

De-essing between 5.5 and 9.5 kHz at 70% of full strength for this genre. The de-ess control scales it, and the report says how much it took on your file.

What the repair stage adds

If your track came from an AI generator, the repair runs before all of this: the cutoff near 16 kHz is rebuilt, the low-mid excess near 350 Hz is cut by the measured amount, and the narrow image is opened above 200 Hz. The genre profile then masters the repaired track. Every move is printed on the report in dB.