If you have a choice to specify the actual dB level, do that. The point here is that if you use a percentage, might be setting the max loudness to lower than you think. For example, a 30% target is about -10 dB. Yeah, another thing about measuring audio is that it isn't linear. For example, normalizing to 100% is the same as raising the volume to the maximum of 0 dB.Ī 50% target will be roughly equivalent to -6 dB. Targets as percentagesĪ normalization effect might offer percentages as targets as well as specific dB targets. So you can use normalization to reduce your loudest peak by setting the target to just under -3 dB, like say -2.99 dB. That means our audio with the shout that goes as high as -2 dB breaks their rule because that is louder than -3 dB. For example, if you are recording an audiobook for Audible (using their ACX marketplace), they will not accept audio that has a peak level above -3 dB. So why would you want to do this? Certain services have maximum loudness standards. If you set your normalization target to -3 dB, then the effect will LOWER everything by 1 dB, which is the amount of reduction you need to get your -2 dB peak down to -3 dB. So let's say the loudest part of your audio - the shout - is at -2 dB. So that means if you place the setting to a target that is LOWER than the loudest part (the shout in our example above), the normalizing will turn everything down by the amount it takes for the loudest part to meet the target. Remember, all the program is doing is changing the level of the loudest bit of audio to a target you choose, and changing all the rest of the audio by that same amount. While most people use to raise the overall volume of their audio, you can ALSO turn audio DOWN with normalization. So the loudest part of your audio gets turned up to as loud as it can be before clipping.Īudio after normalization Other normalization settings Once it knows the loudest bit of audio, it will turn that up to 0 dB (if you are going for the greatest amount of normalization).
MP3 NORMALIZER SOFTWARE SOFTWARE
The normalization effect in audio software will find whatever the loudest point in your recorded audio is. Let's get back the the question of how much audio is turned up when it's being normalized. As it happens, the loudest part of the audio in our example below is in the bottom part of the audio. This also means that when looking for the loudest part of your audio, you have to look both up AND down. And in this swim lane, BOTH edges are boundaries not to be crossed. So rather than thinking of the maximum allowable volume level as a "ceiling," which is what I was going to do, let's think of it like a swim lane. Since pictures make things easier, see Figure 1. But as long as you buy into the fact that 0 dB is the loudest the audio can get before clipping (distorting), you'll know all you need to know.īecause of the fact that audio comes from waves - the back-and-forth motion of air molecules - the loudest parts of audio are shown at the top AND bottom, and absolute silence is in the middle. As the audio gets quieter, it sinks deeper into the negative numbers. Really quiet levels are down at like -70 dB. Average levels for music are usually between around -13 dB to -20 dB for short. This maximum volume level I mentioned is at 0 decibels (abbreviated as "dB"), by the way. If the audio is somehow pushed beyond that boundary, the audio gets really ugly because it distorts/clips. First, let's recall that with digital audio, there is a maximum volume level. The answer to THAT takes just a little tiny bit of explaining. The only question is "how much does it get turned up?" When you "normalize" an audio waveform (the blobs and squiggles), you are simply turning up the volume. It's actually pretty easy to understand and not really that easy to put into words.
As is typical with audio terminology, that definition is super confusing. You COULD just use the definition from Wikipedia here. Should I Care What Audio Normalization Is? To answer the questions in the title - let's take them one at a time, but in reverse order, because it's easier that way:).
Here is a quick animated gif that kind of explains what normalization (technically, this is "peak normalization" *) is in 2 seconds. So what else is new in the audio recording world? Because the term is not really very self-explanatory. If you've heard the term "audio normalization," or just anything like "you should normalize your audio?" you may well wonder "what the heck does that mean? Isn't my audio normal? Do I have abnormal audio?" And you would be right to wonder that.
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