What is Normalizing - Creating Tracks
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- Опубліковано 9 лют 2025
- Today we take a look at audio normalization, explain what it is and provide you with some helpful tips and insights relating to how you can use it successfully in your own projects.
Audio normalization is often misunderstood and even misused, so we wanted to take a little time to clearly explain the basics and provide some tips to help you put it to good use in your own music productions. We chose a very quiet field recording from a public library to show how much improvement audio normalizing can provide even when applied with a 'softer hand' when compared to the basic default settings. Our audio clip was downloaded from freesound.org, which is a great online community and destination for those looking for a place to swap and share sounds and recordings freely.
Audio normalization can be both largely beneficial and incredibly destructive, so understanding how it works and how best to apply it for the task at hand is essential for successful results. I normally advise people to make sure you have your audio files that you will be using in your music productions saved to a folder outside of your actual DAW project folder to avoid any unwanted damage, as audio normalization is a destructive process.
Simply put, audio normalization takes the overall volume level (dB) of an audio file and increases it (in dB) so that the highest peak is aligned with the volume limit set in the parameter settings. So, in this case, our audio file has its highest peak hit the -15dB mark and the entire audio file would be increased in volume by 15dB if the volume limit is set to 0dB. This means that the dynamic range is protected. But we want to avoid increasing the volume too much and risk causing clipping issues once it is incorporated into our mix. Therefore, we recommend allowing for some headroom and setting the volume limit to something less than 0dB.
As is often the case in music production, less is more! Leaving yourself some headroom to work with means that you now can process this audio file any way you like and not constantly bump up against the clipping threshold as you work. You can still increase the perceived volume of the audio file in question by applying some subtle saturation or compression. You can freely shape the audio with an EQ without having to worry about accenting any frequencies, which would have resulted in clipping had it been normalized to 0dB.
actual content starts at 2:00
youre welcome
+Fleegsta thanks for the feedback Fleegsta
THANK YOU @Fleegsta
jesus H. Christ 2 minutes and 11 seconds before you get to the point? It's 2017 we don't have time for your 1973 approach on the topic of something.
2:11 if you want to save another 11 seconds of your life
you are such a legend for these tutorials
I am watching your video during to Covid-19 outbreak your warning for flue sounds so funny!where have we come to my friend? great video thx
Big help in understanding this whole process. THANKS!
Awesomely explained! I like to normalize acoustic guitars, as they often can get a bit low in the mix with heavy synths etc. One thing i wondered: Normalizing does not affect the quality of the recording right?
I have it as a habit to normalize all my music in vegas before I add them to my playlist, is this a smart thing to do ? : E
When I click on some tracks they are also shown in the editor window but other tracks, I click on them and they don’t change in the editor window (it stays on the other track I selected) any idea why this is!? Thanks and you’re videos are awesome
Hi! Thank you for the video!
Do you know I can normalize the volume of different tracks? With the normalization I mean.. I have 3 separate tracks of the same instrument that were recorded in different days but...the volume is quite different, do you know how can I make the same volume of these 2 tracks in Sonar? I'm getting mad on this :\ Thanks!
Question... I gain stage using a Dorrough meter. I basically run through the Dorrough, and then lower everything to -13db, so I can have headroom for mixing and mastering. Since normalizing will in effect set everything to 0db peak... does it make sense that I could actually normalize a track and then merely lower the overall signal by 13db to get the same effect? The reason I'm asking is... it's a lot quicker to simply normalize the audio in multiple tracks simulteneously, than it is to play an entire song and allow the Dorrough meter to interpret things in real time.
all these comments are just hating man you're awesome +Creating Tracks keep it up
Thanks, great video! Very informative.
Vielen Dank. Gute Erklärung. Grüße aus Buenos Aires.
i need help ? I need to raise up the low parts when i rap would some 1 show me and explain it step by step ? And feel free to email me.
I normalize everything and have great mixes
and how's the mastering process going ?
Trump? is that you?
@@Creatingtrance do you have to normalize every track?
Thank you man.I liked and subbed.
Guys, this is awesome. Thanks so much. Gonna watch all the videos \o/
Glad you enjoyed it! Thanks for checking our videos out. Let us know if you have requests!
Isnt this the same as just increasing the volume of a clip?
Be careful. Normalizing tracks, or certain parts of tracks can cause a huge fukn headache..
+Chris Backhaus We certainly do not recommend normalizing entire tracks. It's best to use normalization for specific workflows or tasks, as we mention in the video. Gotta respect noise floor and dynamic range! Also, normalizing is a great way to reduce dB on a batch of files quickly (exporting sample packs, voiceover clips, SFX clips, etc). So it's not just for making things louder. ;) Thanks for checking it out!
Thank you! :)
I could have explained normalization in 30 seconds.
10 minutes too long
2 minutes in and you haven't gotten to the point yet