16/08/09 18:28 Filed in:
Music
Production
PEAK NORMALIZER
When
digital recording first became popular many engineers liked the
fact that you could record a signal at a low volume and then raise
the volume to suit your needs after the fact. In the days of analog
recording the idea was to put as much signal onto the magnetic tape
as possible without going over into distortion. However engineers
then realized that because of the nature of digital recording, when
you record something quietly it uses fewer bits than a louder
signal. Therefore you still want to get a good strong signal when
you record in digital.
How Does it Work?
A
peak normalizer takes the loudest peak in the audio and raises it
to the predetermined level. It then raises the volume of all the
other audio relative to this loudest peak. The result is identical
to the original only louder. Here's something to remember, the
overal volume of each track is set by using the faders. If this is
the case why normalize at all you ask? Well let's say you have a
plugin that you want to use that has no input volume setting. You
might want to use the normalizer to change the volume of the audio
to match the input sensitivity of the plugin. This may also be
useful when sending a signal out of your computer to use with an
outboard effects processor, or if you want to take a raw guitar
signal and re-amp it. If the signal is too hot you might overdrive
the outboard gear if it's too quiet you might pick up some
noise.
Yeah but what does normalization actually do?
Well
really all it does (usually) is raise the volume! A typical
normalizer does nothing to the dynamic range. In a digital system
0db is the loudest you can go and so normalizing to 0db is probably
not a good idea. This is beacuse it leaves no headroom and the
second you compress or add anykind of dynamic effect you run the
risk of going over 0db and into digital distortion. Many
normailization plugins allow you to normalize to a certain volume,
so it's a good idea to normailize to a level BELOW zero like -6db
or -10db to give you some room for processing.
RMS
NORMALIZER
An RMS normalizer works with he average volume of the audio. This
type of normalizer is more commonly used for mastering but can be
used any time. RMS normalizers can also LOWER the volume. By using
an RMS normalizer on several tracks you can ensure that the average
volume will be consistent for all the tracks on a CD for
example.
Things
to keep in mind
Normalizing
the audio is not about making things louder in the final mix where
you will set the individual volumes of each track with the faders.
For me it's more about getting the audio to a level where you are
able to hear anything that might be wrong with the audio during
tracking when it's easiest to fix! There's nothing worse than doing
a mix and now that you have something as loud as you want it
there's noise and problems you can't get rid of. Or even worse,you
no longer have access to that musician or you have to pay the
musician to come back to re-record something. When I was working
more often in professional studios I would go back a few hours
after a tracking session and listen to the tracks one at a time
with headphones to make sure they were clean enough to use.
Louder does not always mean better, sometimes when you have
recorded a track and it's already at a good level you can just
leave it alone! You have to learn to use your own discretion here.
If you have something that's overly quiet it's usually a good idea.
Having said that I have worked with many engineers that normalize
absolutely everything, and some that never normalize anything! I
myself try to stay away from the extremes, so I use normalization
only on things that I feel are too quiet.
If you are looking to make something more even or increace the
apparent loudness of something, a compressor is probably a better
tool for that job.
Tags: normalizer, volume, Level, Audio