NAIL YOUR MUSIC'S LOUDNESS & SPECTRUM
Drop a folder of masters and see the whole album on one screen. Loudness-tinted waveforms show exactly where a track runs hot — not just that it does.
Download See it read a real album ↓
Scan 20 tracks for free · WAV · AIFF · FLAC · MP3
HOW IT WORKS
Drag the album folder onto Hot Spotter. It analyzes WAV, AIFF, FLAC and MP3s with an industry-standard engine (integrated LUFS, EBU R 128), all on your machine. No cloud, fully functional offline.
Every track is measured against your album's own average, or a reference or target you set. Tracks that drift louder or quieter get flagged for your review, and the tinted waveform shows exactly which sections do it.
Bounce a new master or confirm a track is how you like it, then hit Analyze Again. Every change is tracked in History, so you can watch your album's levels take shape.
WHAT IT IS
OVERVIEW
Load up the Overview for one graph of the whole record. Each track's loudness shows as a bar around the album's average, flagging the ones that leave the pack. Leave notes for your mixes and see them at a glance in the Spot Report underneath.
TINTED WAVEFORM & CONTOUR
Short-term loudness is color-coded on the waveform. Green while a track sits with the album, amber to red where it gets loud, blue where it dips quiet. Toggleable contour with a hover feature for details.
Leave mix notes right on the waveform with timestamps using the "Spots" feature. Export your notes for an engineer, or copy the timestamped list to work through in your DAW.
SPOT REPORT
Hear something? Tap "P" to mark a spot in the Spot Report. Leave notes that automatically include the timestamp for quick and easy mix refinement.
Analyze again, double-check, and knock them off your list. And if you're collabing, you can quickly export the Spot Report to a file, or even to your clipboard, to paste into a chat app like iMessage or Discord.
VIEW YOUR AUDIO SPECTRUM
Every track features a spectrum against the album's own spread — sub, bass, low-mids, high-mids and highs each get a verdict in dB. No more guessing between "boomy" and "muddy", everything in view.
MAKE IT YOURS
Every waveform, graph and chip in the app follows the palette you pick. Thermal is the default.
NO PRESET POLICE
Hot Spotter doesn't grade you against a streaming target or a broadcast spec. Load a reference of your favorite song or album, type in a target you think sounds better, or make all your tracks your own.
By default, Hot Spotter's reference is the record you're making: every loudness reading is a distance from your album's own average. Drag the slider toward strict to get your tracks tighter, or toward relaxed to keep them more dynamic. You decide between intentional dynamics and slamming consistency.
For those who'd rather chase a tried-and-true reference, you can manually input one of your own, or load a reference file or album to get a picture of what your peers and idols are doing.
No uploads, no account — analysis runs locally Native Rust engine (EBU R 128 / ITU-R BS.1770) Reports save as standalone HTML or plain text
QUESTIONS & ANSWERS
Per track: integrated LUFS, true peak (dBTP), loudness range (LRA), short-term loudness over time, dynamics (PSR), and a five-band tonal balance (sub, bass, low-mid, high-mid, high). Loudness and tonal balance are shown against the album's own average.
Per album: mean loudness, loudness spread, and a full change history between runs.
Good gravy, they don't!
−14 LUFS is a playback normalization number, not a mastering order. Hot Spotter shows you whether your album is consistent with itself. Does track five jump out of bounds? Is that intro too quiet, and will it get people to skip?
If you do want a fixed number, click the album average and type one; it becomes your target. Or load up your favorite album or track and use it as a reference.
WAV, AIFF, FLAC and MP3. If a folder mixes MP3s with lossless files, Hot Spotter asks which formats to analyze, as lossy formats like MP3 can meter louder than lossless formats like WAV.
If you have MP3s alongside lossless versions, no worries: a WAV+MP3 pair of the same song is detected and shown as one track.
Absolutely not! Hot Spotter is a native desktop app, analysis runs on your machine, and the app makes no network requests except checking for updates and activating or deactivating your license key.
Both. macOS 13 Ventura or later (Apple Silicon and Intel), and Windows 10 or 11 (64-bit, beta). Same app, same engine, one download page.
You can scan 20 tracks for free — no account, no time limit. After that, I ask $20 to help support development.
No subscription, no locked features, no DLC. Buy Hot Spotter once and own it for life, future updates included. One key covers three computers, and there's a 14-day refund if it isn't for you. Something missing? Tell us.
The free version analyzes 20 tracks. A track is a file name inside an album folder, counted once: re-exporting a master to the same file name is free, renaming it or moving the folder counts as new, and a WAV+MP3 pair of the same song counts once.
References never count, and neither do failed or cancelled runs. Your reports and history stay readable after the 20 are used.
I'm Chris, also known as DJ Cutman, a DJ and producer running my own label. I built Hot Spotter to help me get more consistent playback on streaming services, and as my friends found out about the project, they asked me to develop it into an app.
Found a bug, or have a feature request? Accidentally scanned the wrong folder and used up all your free tracks? Send me an email or DM me on Instagram @VideoGameDJ.
DOWNLOAD HOT SPOTTER
Download now and scan 20 tracks for free, then $20 once. No subscription, no add-ons, no DLC. macOS 13 Ventura or later (Apple Silicon and Intel) and Windows 10 or 11 (beta).
Download Release notes → Send feedback →
The Mac app is signed and notarized and updates itself. On Windows, come back here for new versions.
