Normalizing in Soundforge 'peak' vs 'RMS' ?

  • Thread starter Thread starter glynb
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glynb

Balladeer
I was trying to burn a CD including some commercial songs and one of mine. I noticed that the volume level was a lot lower for my song
and decided to have a go at increasing the loudness via Soundforge, as i've read about other people doing this.

Looking at the wave form displayed in SF of the commercial song compared with my own, I noticed (apart from the overall level being higher)
there were fewer peaks and troughs compared with mine. So I tried to get the wave form for my song to look more like the commercial one and achieved this, but it sounded awful! I mean the compression use was obvious, so much so that it affected the sound of the song.
Todo this I used the SF normalize 'RMS' option and pushing it to '0' db.

In the end the only way I could get the level higher without significantly altering the
sound quality of the mix was to use the 'peak' option to '0' db, but no way did the level and wave form approach that of the commercial CD.

Whats the best way of increasing the 'loudness' in Soundforge to a reasonable loudness to the commercial CDs, without spoling the sound of the music? I realise I can't match those produced by the Pro's but I want to
minimise the volume difference between my stuff and the commercial, so poeple don't have to turn up their hifi when they listen to my music!

As you'll have guessed I'm a beginner at all this mastering stuff, so make it simple please!
 
If you have SF 6.0

You can use the Wave Hammer plugin...this should be effective in getting an increased sound level. There is a little compression going on there, but I've used it and it works well. I would go with peak instead of RMS - but that's just my opinion.

W.
 
Damn, I thought you might recomend that. Unfortunatley i have version 4 !

Guess I'll have to invest in an upgrade.
 
yeah - it really is a nice plugin. SF 6.0 does better at processing as well. It isn't quite as resource hungry as earlier versions. I think Sonic Foundry will charge you about $150 to upgrade. I haven't seen it anywhere cheaper yet - although sometimes poking around on the web will lead you to deals from time to time.

W.
 
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