7/28/2023 0 Comments Flac sound normalizer![]() 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). 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 that isn't the way it works with audio.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. For instance, you might expect the quietest audio to be at the bottom and the loudest to be at the top. For more detail on this, check out my post What Is the Difference Between Condenser and Dynamic Microphones? So What Is The Weird Part?Īudio waves show up in audio software in a weird sort of way. That causes the flat thing to move back and forth (in the case of a dynamic mic) or to cause back-and-forth electrical pressure in the case of a condenser mic. The way a microphone is able to pick up audio is that those "air waves" ripple across the surface of a flat thing inside the mic. Those waves cause air molecules to vibrate back and forth. In case you didn't know this, sound/audio is caused by waves in the air. 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. 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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