Normalising is good?

G

goldfish

New member
I know this might look like a dumb question, but I've personally never seen the point of normalising. All it does is brings the highest peak up to 0dB by amplifiying.. surely you could achive this just as well with amplifiying and hard limiting, and also adding (a very small ammount of) compresson at the same time.

Ive been going fine without doing this process for everything, but you guys seem to like it... is it just taste or have i just not seen the light?
 
Who's told you that it's good to do? From my understanding it's a big no no, because while it amplifies the highest peak to whatever, it also amplifies the noise by the same amount.
 
LOL :p

yes, that was exactly what I was thinking. I was just looking through my plugins and though "Does normalising actualy do ANYTHING useful?"

I spose it could be used for some speech only applications, even then after compression..

Anyway, sorry about that :p
 
wetteke said:
every tool has its use
Click to expand...
yes... but just because a tool exists doesn't indicate usefullness.

Normalizing doesn't do anything a fader doesn't already do, so unless you need to drastically modify levels as part of a gain-staging or track level-matching process (ie, one tracks levels are serisouly out of whack with all other tracks you're dealing with), there is little other practical benefit to normalizing.
 
"Normalizing doesn't do anything a fader doesn't already do"

So, when you bring a fader up, doesn't that bring up the noise floor as well?
 
Absolutely... and in the case of a digital mixer, the DSP would introduce round-off error except at the specific point where there is a zero multiplier of the signal (typically the 0-mark!)
 
Well, if normalizing raises the noise floor and the main volume control raises the noise floor, then there's no difference, right? And if you want your mix to be as loud as it can usefully be without noticeably compromising sound quality, why not normalize?

You normalize and the sound floor comes up. So what? The overall loudness has come up as well. The sound floor's as masked as it ever was.

No?
 
No -- because your introduce 2 DSPs when only one will do (ie, normalize, and then faders -- as opposed to only faders) -- less round-off error.
 
Dont use digital mixers myself. Nor do I intend to for some time. As for doing the same thing as faders, is "amplify" normalising? i didnt think it was, as its seperate in most places ive seen. i thought normalising just boosted the level until the highest peak was at whatever dB.

and if they are the same as faders, why not just mix it right the first time round? :p
 
Normalizing is simply a gain multiplier (can be +ive or -ive), typically to some maximum value.

Which is exactly what a fader does.... except for the preset maximum value.
 
normalizing

from a novice homerecording dude, last night at 2am I used normalizing for the first time and see the benefit when using it from "song to song" normalizing and not track normalizing.

it's extremely quick and less wasted blank CD-r's.
Relevance: No, I don't have a nice compressor limiter in the mixdown chain.

I didn't hear a degradation on my two homegrown songs,but don't have the high end equipment to hear the minute-changes when tracking either, yet. most of my tracking is headphones.....love my cans.

its simple logic that everytime you process digitally thru anything your degrading the "ah-inspiring-natural analog wave" we start with.
degrading bit by bit, DSP to DSP, AD-DA-AD-DA-AD-DA..... until you have a SawWave or Behringer sound.

Scenario of Application:
I had two songs- one recorded 8/15/03 & one 5/28/03.
No major PEAKS/SPIKES, they each sounded ok...just at different volumes. The CD-Recorder display didn't show a big difference when burning but in the car it was a noticeable volume difference.

so listening in the car there was the dreaded "volume adjusting" we audio heads hate.

Any way I zipped the CDR/two songs to the computer at 44K/stereo,
highlighted the tracks/wav.forms...hit normalize on both songs at -1 and burnt a newCD and bam...cool...played in the car this morning going to work...the song levels matched and the volume was at a nice level too, increased.

So yes, I think its a great little tool for the SMALL home recording setups that don't have compressor/limiters.

Next to try a Pro-Consumer store bought CD and Noramlize it and compared quality...that'd be interesting...daaaang work gets in the way of everything.
 
Blue Bear Sound said:
yes... but just because a tool exists doesn't indicate usefullness.

Normalizing doesn't do anything a fader doesn't already do, so unless you need to drastically modify levels as part of a gain-staging or track level-matching process (ie, one tracks levels are serisouly out of whack with all other tracks you're dealing with), there is little other practical benefit to normalizing.
Click to expand...


this one application already makes it usefull





:)
 
Track it right from the start. If a level is that low then you're only dealing with a wimpy low bit file. Also if there is any type of peak in the audio, then the peak will be brought up to 0dB (or whatever you set it to) and not have as much as an effect. I think the point is that you really shouldn't need to normalize, if you record with a good signal and control the dynamics with a compressor/limiter, that is more effective.
 
maddrummer said:
Track it right from the start. If a level is that low then you're only dealing with a wimpy low bit file. Also if there is any type of peak in the audio, then the peak will be brought up to 0dB (or whatever you set it to) and not have as much as an effect. I think the point is that you really shouldn't need to normalize, if you record with a good signal and control the dynamics with a compressor/limiter, that is more effective.
Click to expand...

Devil's advocate here:

Then doesn't the compressor/limiter add degrading effects to the signal?
 
I'm not pouncing on CoolCat here, just injecting some ideas to try zero in on this...:D

From C/C's post...
"Scenario of Application:
...I had two songs- one recorded 8/15/03 & one 5/28/03.
...but in the car it was a noticeable volume difference.
...hit normalize on both songs at -1 and burnt a newCD and bam...cool...played in the car this morning going to work...the song levels matched and the volume was at a nice level too, increased."

This is in part about normalizing that seems to keep comming up and is misleading. Normalizing is NOT about making songs the same loudness....without...

..."No major PEAKS/SPIKES, they each sounded ok...just at different volumes. "

If either of the songs had a single high peak the other did not, it would not have worked.

"Relevance: No, I don't have a nice compressor limiter in the mixdown chain."

Sounds like good clean tracking and playing skills.:)

"its simple logic that everytime you process digitally thru anything your degrading the "ah-inspiring-natural analog wave" we start with."

BlueBear's point earlier was that all of these adjustments, volume matching, peak control, peak levels, can be seen, heard, and controled in a single =Non-Distructive= process befor you burn a cd. In some cases the original file is gone.

"So yes, I think its a great little tool for the SMALL home recording setups that don't have compressor/limiters."

Ok. Fair enough. If you record smoothly, or all your mixes have about the same peak-to-average volume and you don't need them LOUD, you don't need compressors, limiters or normalizers.
:D :D :D
Later:)
Wayne
 
Fishmed said:
Devil's advocate here:

Then doesn't the compressor/limiter add degrading effects to the signal?
Click to expand...

Everything degrades the sound, let me say that again, Everything degrades the sound. If you can get by without comp/lim. the better, but then again some degradations can sound good. example distorted guitar.
 
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