how do I get different songs to be the same level?

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maryslittlesecret

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Howdy, all. I thought I had this figured out with a tip I found in Sound Forge Power, but I can't seem to make it work. The tip suggests the following procedure using the normalization feature:

Open your first file, scan the levels, and hit cancel. Then open your next file, and normalize it with the 'use current scan level' option checked.

This seems like it should work, but unless I'm doing something wrong, it definitely does not. When I do this, the results vary wildly -- I can end up with one file that's peaking at only -6db and another that's clipping...

It seems that with digital files and a tool like Sound Forge, there ought to be a way to make sure all your songs are at the same level -- can anyone give me their tips or tricks on how to get different .wav files to the same level so that I've got a consistent volume across a CD? Thanks!

J
http://www.30SoS.com

P.S. Suggestions to get it done professionally at a $200/hour mastering studio are great, but not exactly in my budget... ;)
 
Okay, fair warning, you may not like my answer. But first, the disclaimer, YMMV. I'm anti-normalization. Don't like what it does to my sound, and I view it as intended to cater to the soldiers of the Volume Wars. Besides, there are better ways to make it loud, if that is your goal, and still avoid clipping. They just tend to be more labor intensive. My approach is to make the song sound as good as I can, then if I'm "home mastering", I address level matching with final limiting.

Now, my answer: use your ears. I don't mean that in any smart a$$ kinda way. The brutal truth is, software meters ain't gonna get it. Line up your tunes (I use CD Architect), grab a pad and pencil with the titles printed up, TURN OFF YOUR COMPUTER MONITOR, and listen for level discrepancies. Make notes as you go, then adjust accordingly. Listen on multiple, diverse playback systems and enviroments to check for translation. It may take more than one attempt. Lather, rinse, repeat. Always repeat!
-kent
 
However you process your songs, some will be louder than others in the end. What you need to do is line 'em all up in whatever program you use for mastering, then find the peaks in each--the loudest section of each song. Mark them so you can fly from one to the next. Then, find one that will be the standard and tweak all the rest until they are the same level to your ears. You have to go back and forth and listen critically. Once you've done this, make sure that you have no overs and you are all set. You can bounce each track to disk and they will be set at the level you set them all to.

As for how to bring up levels, don't normalize. Use limiting or multi band compression--or maybe both. As for which plugs, I haven't used enough different ones to know. I tried a demo of the Vintage Warmer that I thought was damn nice.
 
Crawdad had a good answer... this is just an elaboration...

Normalization has nothing to do with finding the proper aesthetic level of songs relative to one another. By normalizing a really "soft" ballad, you may be doing mothing more than making it sound louder than the "kick-ass" tune that follows it. The end result is to make your kick-ass tune sound wimpy.

First, you will need to check your head room. If your mixes have any transients near digital zero, it means you will have to lower volumes to get matches between songs, not raise them. The drawback to this is that your overall CD volume level may be lower than you would like.

Now find the song that "should" be the loudest. You will use that one as a standard, and lower all the other songs the necessary amount in order to make them sound proportional. The easiest way to do that is to compare sections of lead vocals in each song. Since that is usually the listener's focus, it is a good way to start.

However, sometimes you will find that on a particular song, getting the lead vocal to match your reference song results in the drums being way too soft, or something similar. This means that on that song, you mixed your lead vocal too loud, and you may need to remix.

If you end up finding your overall CD level is clearly too low, you may have to apply limiting to your reference track, so that you can then raise the volume of that track, thereby allowing you to raise the other songs proportionally (checking to see if limiting needs to be applied to those as well). If it is just one or two transients in a song that is limiting headroom, you can try to correct just those transients by "drawing them down" if your software allows it.

This is just a short answer to a complex problem. Good luck. BTW, you should be able to find someone to master for $75-80/hr if you shop around. That is the real solution.
 
Mary's Secret - Normalizing won't work, as it works on the "peak" levels of the song. In attempting to equalize among songs, you are interested in the average (or rms) level, not the peak level.

If you are reading Sound Forge Power, can I assume you have Sound Forge? If so, the Wave Hammer is a pretty good tool for raising the overall volume of tracks.

The other guys have already given you some excellent advice. First use your ears. Secondly, not all tracks are supposed to be at the same volume level. However, they should transition well from one to the next. IOW, one shouldn't jump out at you as being too loud or too low in the context of the one previous to it.

As previously stated, line up the tracks and play one into the next. On songs where you think you need to raise the volume, try the Wave Hammer (bypass the compressor section and use the limiter). As LD told you, you may frequently find that you need to go back and remix some of the songs.

Good luck.
 
Hey, everyone. I really appreciate all the responses and advice (the difference between peak and RMS normalizing was particularly helpful, dachay2tnr), but this got way more into the 'zen' of home recording than I was expecting.

With this being a demo project which has already gone waaaay over in time, I'm really looking for more of a quick, 'down and dirty' solution -- one last process I could run (normalizing, limiting, etc.) that would automatically get the tunes to a similar level.

Is there anything like that (for us impatient newbies who have too much to do and nowhere near enough time) ;) or am I looking for something that digital audio hasn't quite accomplished yet? Thanks again!

J
http://www.30SoS.com
 
MLS - The program Wavelab has a function called Meta-Normalizer which works across multiple clips. It gives you a choice to normalize on either peak level or RMS level.

This seems to be what you are looking for - except in my (very) limited experience, it just doesn't seem to work as advertised. Could easily be due to operator error, though. You might want to try their demo and see if it works for you. http://service.steinberg.net/webdoc.nsf/show/demos_pc_e
 
very nice!

I'm glad I read this one..printed it out for my little tips archive.

thanks!
 
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