normalizing music

[Zak]

does anyone know of a decent website that explains normalizing music? at the dances i dj, i play lindy, west coast, east coast, hustle, cha-cha, 2-step, etc. i make a lot of the cds i use for djing. the varied music has quite a range of dynamic levels so i trying to make my cds at a reasonably close volume level so that when i go from an old lindy tune from the 40s to a new west coast swing r&b song i don't have to worry about a big volume change and blowing out my speakers or someone's eardrums. i use sound forge for cleaning up my songs. someone recommended to me to normalize my songs at about -12db to -16db but i'm not satisfied w/ those settings. i also have to increase the levels of some older songs or adjust the EQ settings of other songs if they are poor recordings. i appreciate any suggestions.

[mity]

i know that nero allows to normalize the volume on the cd before you burn it.

[julius]

both musicmatch and nero have a single button that you click that makes relative volume levels of all songs on the cd the same. i've never used either function though. i suppose i should check it out.

[Zak]

thanks for the suggestions. i'll check those programs out. do you know if they let you normalize by either peak levels or average levels? you're suppposed to normalize by average levels because a song might have a quick section with a very high peak and if you normalize the songs based on that one high you end up blowing out the rest of the songs. the frustations i have w/ soundforge is that i can normalize one song at a certain level and it'll bring the volume/dynamics down a bit. another song normalized at the same setting will be blown out too high. as i experiment w/ the setttings, the results are very unpredictable. i'm hoping to find some good information about normalizing so i understand why i get the results that i do.

[KevinSchaper]

If it's a question of dealing with it while you're djing (vs on a mixed cd), I've got a trick - if I want the level of the next song to be right, I put both the current song and the next one into the headphones and fuss with the gain on the next one till the volume is about the same - then just stick the fader in the same place for both.

(some mixers have meters that work well for this, too)

[Lawrence]

thanks for the suggestions. i'll check those programs out. do you know if they let you normalize by either peak levels or average levels? you're suppposed to normalize by average levels because a song might have a quick section with a very high peak and if you normalize the songs based on that one high you end up blowing out the rest of the songs.

I just checked, and my version of Nero has both. It is under "Filters," and is one of many audio tools that comes with Nero. (Fade in, Fade out, edit, Jitter correction, click and pop remover, hiss reduction, among others).

As I've written elsewhere, Nero is the best burning program I have seen.

[Yakov]

good thread.

everyone remember: slim gaillard can be REALLY LOUD

[Titus]

Nero is probably ok to normalize tracks being burned to a CD if the tracks were copied from other CDs.

When copying tracks from a CD, the most trusted way to guarantee a perfect copy is to use Exact Audio Copy.

A better option for creating normalized tracks on a CD from other CD tracks is to use WaveGain, because the normalizing algorithm is developed and approved by the audiophiles at Hydrogenaudio, and explained at the Replay Gain site.

If we are talking normalizing encoded/compressed music (mp3, ogg, flac, aac, mpc, etc), there are 2 "good" approaches - mp3gain & replaygain

MP3Gain changes the "global gain" in each frame of the mp3 - the value in each frame is changed by the same amount. This is reversible, because if you keep a log of the values added to the "global gain", you can just subtract it again, and you're back to where you started. The advantage is that it works in all hardware & software players. The disadvantage is that you have to keep track of the values if you want to be able to restore to the original condition, and if someone else happens to end up with your files, they won't be able to restore them to their original condition.

Replay Gain doesn't change the audio at all, its just a value in a certain type of tag of the file. The advantage is that you aren't screwing at all with the integrity of the music in the file, and if someone else ended up with the file, they'd have the original condition of the music. The disadvantage is that the only software that I know of that fully supports Replay Gain right now is Foobar2000. There are Winamp Plug-ins that lets you create your own database, but move the file to a different hard drive or directory, and you have to redo the analysis.

Ideally one would create a playlist of mp3's, use Foobar to create Replay Gain information, then use a "perfect" mp3 decoder (listed below) that any burning software can then use to create a CD.

The following Winamp plug-ins provide perfect mp3 decoding:
in_mp3 (bundled with Winamp)
in_mad
in_mpg123

Foobar2000 also provides perfect mp3 decoding [edit: using the in_mp3 plug-in], and has a bunch of features to assist.

-Titus

[Ron]

Jeez, I just normalize by ear. I play a few existing songs on my hard drive, play the new song, then amplify the new song using EZ CD creator by 70% or 130% or whatever seems right to match what the other songs sound like, and repeat however many times it takes to sound right. Its a pain, but that's what I do. I want all my compilations to have a similar volume song for song. I end up bumping most old songs up quite a bit and new songs down a bit.