Normalising is good?

[kylen]

...Oh I see Blue Bear - p 15, oddly enough, it's about Normalizing !

For the folks that don't have the book yet (go get this one !) here's what I would say the point of interest is (get some popcorn):

Professional mastering engineers do not use the normalization function of a DAW to adjust level. Normalization looks for the highest peak of the audio file and adjusts all the levels of the file upward to match that level. Although that seems like a very simple and easy way to adjust levels, it is seldom, if ever used.

Even the smallest adjustment inside the DAW causes some massive DSP recalculations, all to the detriment of the ultimate sound quality. The biggest problem of normalizing is that it just looks at the digital numbers involved and not at the content of the music. As a result you end up with some songs (ballads, for example) that are way too loud because of the way that they're electronically boosted.

The reason that normalization or plug-ins aren't used is strictly a sonic one; it doesn't sound good, and it really doesn't do as good a job at creating average levels in between songs as the human ear. Ultimately, you're not looking for equal electronic loudness, you're looking for equal perceived loudness between songs. This is something that normalization can't achieve.

...and on...

whew - I just got out of C++ design class so my eyes are spinning anyway. The Blues on PBS is cookin too

I think most of this has already been covered in the thread anyway but there it is from the pros !

I haven't spent much time in the 'normalization destruction' space so I couldn't attest to it one way or the other - I hear a lot of folks speak of it. I guess the interger round off makes sense but with things like 32bit floating point files and 64bit internal processing I don't know. The conversion at the plug-in insert points and summing points in DAW mixdowns is an issue too in digital so there's a few demons in there yet - in my garage that is !

I hang out in the post-mix area and with the mixes I work on I'm looking at different issues. The last paragraph in the quote above talks about perceived loudness and it's a fact - normalizing just won't balance a CD project. I think even the Cool Edit Pro guys'll tell folks that - and they got a group normalize (using an equal loudness curve) function.

I've heard people 'balance' the songs in a project by pushing them into a mastering limiter - so there you go - does that work well or does it destroy dynamics - depends how it sounds, yes ? But this ain't a dynamics thread - or is it ? Ha Ha everything is everything like they say !

Like Bob Ohlsson says about his philosophy of mastering (the interview I was reading last night) - "Do no harm" ! In my garage it's - "Do no harm - but make sure I have safety tracks when I do!" Ha Ha it happens...

Here's one for ya Blue Bear - same book - page 190 - last question to Bob Katz...

kylen