Normalizing

[ashulman]

I have some wav files I want to burn to cd and I understand I should normalize them. I am using Soundedit Pro and don't know what kind of level I should normalize to. Should all the tunes be at the same level?

 

[misterDX]

Compare one wave to another and see if they are at the same volume in order to avoid one loud track next to a mellow one.

 

[ashulman]

Would you bring down the loud one or raise up the lower one?

 

[mbuster]

Actually, (and I may be wrong here), normalizing your tracks is only going to compare the peaks of the audio, rather than the average percieved volume. So normalization is relatively useless in this case. Especially if some songs NEED to be louder than others. Start with the loudest one and go from there. But I'm most likely wrong here.

 

[misterDX]

Would you bring down the loud one or raise up the lower one?

Yes, try ti create an internal logic in it though. But yes you may need to boost one or lower another.

 

[crosstudio]

i'd raise the lower one.

if you must normalize, normalize the whole project such that the loudest songs peak hits 0 rather than normalizing each individual song.

personally, i don't normalize at all. i use a multi-band compressor followed by a peak limiter (i.e. Waves L1) to get each songs dynamics where i want them so that they flow well together.