Normalize???

[vicevursa]

What exactly does "normalize" mean? What does it do?

[dachay2tnr]

It takes the highest peak in your wave and brings it up to 0db (assuming you normalize to 0db) and then raises everything else proportionally.

[Blue Bear Sound]

It seems that "normalizing" would be an appropriate process to use everytime you make a recording.... but there are specific reasons you don't want to use it at all depending on the context...

As dachay2tnr, it brings the top level to Odbfs (assuming you normalize to 0dbfs)... this of course also brings the noise floor up along with the rest of the signal... something that may or may not be a problem, depending how quiet the recording was to start with.

Also, for a single song that you want to pass out, it makes sense to bring your levels up, but let's say you're doing an album... you don't want to simply normalize each track because you will destrot any natural dynamic balances between songs. The last thing you want to have happen is your soft ballad to come in as loud as the previous hard-hitting rock track....

It is a tool - useful in the appropriate context.... real easy to abuse too!!

Bruce

[Sash]

Another thing about normalizing is, you don't have to normalize the whole song. If you have one spot in a song that is extremely loud and you normalize the whole song it will do it in proportion to the already loud part and will probably not bring the rest of the song up much. You can experiment and hi lite different parts of a song and normalize them seperate to even the song out, if that is the effect you are going for. You have to be careful not to nullify the dynamics of a tune by doing this.

I mix a lot of stuff for my daughters cheerleading squad and they are always taking ten seconds of this song and putting it with thirty seconds of that song and so on to make about a two minute dance song. This is one case where I want the whole thing to be consistant and as loud as possible without distorting so I normalize each section as I add it. I also remaster a lot of old material such as live recordings of bands and I sometimes normalize parts that, for one reason or another, where not recorded as loud as the rest of the song. Some times the "make 3db louder" function will suffice for this.

Sash

[vicevursa]

Ok, that makes sense... Thanks for the help!