From The Mastering Engineers Handbook by Bobby Owsinski
From interview with Bob Katz, co owner of Orlando-Based Digital Domain, Bob Katz specializes in mastering audiophile recordings of acoustic music, fromfolk music to classical . The former tachnical director of the widely acclaimed Chesky Records, Bob's recordings have recieved Disc if the Month in Stereophile and other magazines numerous times, and his recording of Portraits of Cuba by Paquito D'Rivera, won the 1997 Grammy for Best Latin-Jazz Recording. Bob's mastering clients include major labels EMI, WEA-Latina, BMG, and Sony Classical, as well as numerous independent labels.
Q: Do You ever normalize?
B.K.: "Normalize" is a very dangerous term, I think it should be destroyed as a word because it's so ambiguous. If you mena do I ever use the Sonic Solutions normalize functions so that all the tracks get set to the highest peak level, the answer is no. Or do I ever use TC electronics finalizer normalize function to find the highest peak and bring it up to 0db? No, I never do that. Do i use my ears and adjust the levels from track to track so that they fit from one to the other, then use compressors and limiters and expanders and equalizers and other devices to make sure that the highest peak on the album hits 0db FS? Yes, I do. I don't call that normalizing, though.
From interview with Glenn Meadows, the two-time Grammy winner and a multi-TEC award nominee who has owned the Nashville-based Masterfonicssince the 70's (most recently purchased by Emerald Entertainment). He has worked on scores of gold and platinum records for a diverse array of artists including Shania Twain, LeAnn Rimes, Randy Travis, Delbert McClinton, Widespread Panic, and Bananarama, as well as for producers and engineers such as Tony Brown, Jimmy Bowen, and Mutt Lange.
Q: Do yoy ever use normalize fuction?
G.M.: No.I don't use a computer to decide how much to bring something up. Typically, I will process on the way into the workstation. I am not a load-it-in-and-then-master kind of guy. I prefer to take the original source material and go thru whatever processing gear I decide I need or would like to use on the project, and come into the work station and deal with it that way.
I have a reffernce point where I park the monitors when I start working on the cut, and I kin of get a feel for what it is doing and then look at the head room comming in to see where I am at. Invariably I end up within 1/4 or 1/2 db at the top, maybe because there is a little bit of a peak limiter sitting there as a protection. But once in the work station, I will use the processing only as subtle final tweaks. I don't use the internals of the workstation as my mastering tools per se. The work station is an editing area. It is a scratch pad to do all the work in and compile it and put it together. The outboard gear is what I use for mastering and that is just the way I have grown into it.
Just a couple points of view on Normalization.
