Normalize every track ?

[mattkw80]

If Digital music sounds best close to 0 db but not over,

should I not normalize every single track I record so every track is
as big as possible ?


Is normalizing kind of the same as an expander ?
(Only an expander has settings you can tweak)

 

[Massive Master]

Digital music doesn't "sound best" at 0dB. Get "good" levels (peaks around -6 to -3dB or so), stay in 24-bit and go.

Normalizing every track is worthless (normalizing generally is worthless). You'll be turning everything down during the mix, and if you're using anything analog in the chain, it's not worth the added distortion from hot D-A reconstruction.

 

[Autist]

The only time I normalize anything at all is if it is some sort of sampled sound effect that wasn't recorded hot enough for me and I will normalize it in Sound Forge to a max of -3dB. When I record something myself I get the levels right before I hit the record button.

 

[malcolm123]

Normalize ... ??

I can recall the first project my partner and I ever did. The mix sucked as well as the equipment but we convinced ourselves in to believe we were right on with it all. I mixed it as well as produced most of the tracks,,, then right before we dropped 1500 bucks on it for mastering with a " big " mastering company,,, I normalized the whole thing just in cased they missed something. LOL. Huge mistake,, well the whole project was a huge mistake as well as the money spent on the whole thing. It was a learining experience though.

The only time I now use normalization is when I burn a cd from Mp3s that contains various artists, different years, different encodes.

Get the mix right. play the mix everywhere, turn it up and just remember that it's not mastered. If it sounds good,, ship it.

Malcolm

 

[Alexbt]

I used to normalize my tracks because I didn't have enough gain. Course they were pretty noisy, but that's what you get recording direct in from an ol' 1/4' mic.

Course, that's like 5 or 6 years ago now!

 

[malcolm123]

I used to normalize my tracks because I didn't have enough gain. Course they were pretty noisy, but that's what you get recording direct in from an ol' 1/4' mic.

Course, that's like 5 or 6 years ago now!

Alexbt

I noticed you have a 10/10lt. I have a brand new 10/10 that was purchased before I moved my equipment to another location. If you are tracking more than 4 mic sources at a time,, how are you getting around the lack of preamps or micpres? You can PM me .. I hate to see this unit just sit there in the rack.

Thanks

Malcolm

 

[mattkw80]

Should I at least do I group Normalize on all songs before they get burnt to CD..... ?

Adobe Auditon has this and recommends this...
...I can pull some quotes from the help file...

 

[SouthSIDE Glen]

Normalizing is little more than a one-button version of increasing volume. The only difference between normalization and pushing up your fader is that normalization can be told exactly what level (in dBFS) to increase to, either based on peak level or RMS level. But other than that it is just a volume control. There is noting magic about it.

Nor is there any particular advantage to it, and more ofthen than not it is disadventageous to use when compared to other more quality-effective methods. Defining a peak or average volume level is meaningless when taken out of context to the content you are applying it to. What good is setting the peak to 0dB when the dynamic range between the peak and the RMS is -24dB? What good is setting the RMS to -10dB under those same conditions? The answer to tboth of those questions is "little or no good whatsoever."

Normalization is an attempt to provide a one-button shortcut to actually setting the dynamics and levels of a song properly. As with almost all one-button solutions in any field, it's far from a works-well-in-all-cases solution.

G.

P.S. I myself own Adobe Audition and rather like it as a multitrack mixing environment. But they do provide a lot of "advice" in their help files that is intended for the person who has never mixed before in their lives and that one outgrows very quickly with just a little bit of experience. I think most of their tips on normalization fit that category.

 

[giraffe]

walters????? is that you??????

 

[Revone]

If Digital music sounds best close to 0 db but not over,

should I not normalize every single track I record so every track is
as big as possible ?


Is normalizing kind of the same as an expander ?
(Only an expander has settings you can tweak)

You shouldn't normalize anything, infact, it shouldn't even exist.

 

[mattkw80]

OKay !

Thanks for the info everybody !!

I will lay of the normalization, and learn to record good levels at the beginning !

 

[Pughbert]

?

o.k - so people are saying not to normalize at all. Ever the final mix before burning to cd. (if its not being sent to be mastered). I study music at collage with some very talented tutors. My sound recording tutor has always taught me to normalize the final mix. I see why not to if you intend on having it mastered, but why not if your not intending on doing that?

I produce a lot of recordings, and therefore dont get them all mastered as a lot are demos, which get re-recorded later. I normalize to keep a consistant level on my recordings.

just for what its worth im particlarly fussy to get good recorded levels and carfully set gain staging for mixdown.

 

[BrettB]

o.k - so people are saying not to normalize at all. Ever the final mix before burning to cd. (if its not being sent to be mastered). I study music at collage with some very talented tutors. My sound recording tutor has always taught me to normalize the final mix. I see why not to if you intend on having it mastered, but why not if your not intending on doing that?

I produce a lot of recordings, and therefore dont get them all mastered as a lot are demos, which get re-recorded later. I normalize to keep a consistant level on my recordings.

just for what its worth im particlarly fussy to get good recorded levels and carfully set gain staging for mixdown.

When you have a good final master, there is no need for normalization. When you master, you use EQ, compression and you try to feel if the song has a good loudness feel against the other songs of the album. You could still normalize (it brings the loudest peak to 0) but there is not really any use to it then, is there?

Plenty of articles and posts on normalization on this forum. I seldom use it, I wouldn't see the use when you have a good mix and master.

 

[Farview]

I normalize to keep a consistant level on my recordings.

Normalizing will only make the loudest peak level consistant from song to song. That isn't much use if the peak to rms ratio from song to song isn't consistant in the first place.

 

[Pughbert]

i Know it brings the peak up to the set level, but in general my mixes are of similar dynamics, therefore it does help keep a consistant level. And in no way am i suggesting this is my idea of mastering!!, but im saying when i produce a recording that i dont intend to have mastered, i normalize.

The reason i was suprised that people think it a useless tool is simply that at collage ive always been taught to normalize. And this is advice from industry professionals who have worked with big bands, having produced top ten albums.

I not saying there word is final!, but it just suprised me people dont use it.

 

[Farview]

The reason i was suprised that people think it a useless tool is simply that at collage ive always been taught to normalize. And this is advice from industry professionals who have worked with big bands, having produced top ten albums.

All of those top ten albums were mastered.

When I make a listening copy of mixes, I pay around with the song volume in wavelab before I burn the CD. It is just a rough, by ear, sort of thing. I suppose normalizing doesn't work for me because I could be mixing different projects on the same CD for listening purposes. Acoustic rock and death metal won't have the same dynamics.

 

[mixsit]

i Know it brings the peak up to the set level, but in general my mixes are of similar dynamics, therefore it does help keep a consistant level.

But as you're going to run the mixes through an additional stage of processing anyway, wouldn't it be more fitting to make the last stage a peak limiter with make-up gain? That way you are setting the final peak level, and the relative average level, which is what the ear tells us, is the 'consistent level' we're going for.

The reason i was suprised that people think it a useless tool is simply that at collage ive always been taught to normalize. And this is advice from industry professionals who have worked with big bands, having produced top ten albums.

That in it's self seems surprising. Maybe someone can jump in on this. I'm just down in the trenches (so won't) but what's up with that?
Wayne

 

[SouthSIDE Glen]

The reason i was suprised that people think it a useless tool is simply that at collage ive always been taught to normalize. And this is advice from industry professionals who have worked with big bands, having produced top ten albums.

I not saying there word is final!, but it just suprised me people dont use it.

That is very interesting, because I have yet to talk to or read the words of "an industry professional" who thinks that normalizing is a good idea - until now.

But even if you take "the pro's opinions" out of the equation and just intrinsically look at what normalizing actually does, it just doesn't make a whole lot of sense because the noramlization process doen't actually do anything that is of important relation to the musical content that isn't already done - either directly or as a side efect - by other more straightforward processes.

The fist thing I think needs to be made clear in this conversation is to whether you're referring to peak normalization or RMS normalization, which do two different things.

If it's peak normalization, then - as you inferred - the dynamics on your tracks had better be damn near identical to each other for the peak normalization to be of any use whatsoever. Yes, I know you say that your songs have similar dynamics, but I'd find the actual peak and RMS measurements before you normalize interesting to look at. If the dynamic range between the peak level and the RMS level for each song are evn a couple of dB off, then normalizing may increase the overall volume of each song, but it will do nothing to even the RMS levels out between them.

If it's RMS normalization, then you gotta either be careful of clipping the peaks, or use a normalizer that allows you to force hard limiting somewhere below saturation to avois the clipping. But if you do that, there really is no difference between that process and the one of thowing a hard limiter at the song and then boosting the gain. If you use RMS normalization with a brick wall option like that, yoiu are going to wind up perhaps normalizing the RMS between songs, but you will be also paying the price of coloration that comes withthe brick wall procedure. If that coloring is OK with you, then that's fine. But then the question will still remain, why not use a quality limiter (outboard or plug) with a better sound rather than depend on the normalizer to do such a crucial process?

G.