To normalize or not?

[skimpi]

if you dont want to master your own stuff or send it away to be mastered then you dont need to allow room for compressors/limiters to be turning everything up but you should still export with a bit of headroom, just use a limiter or compressor with very light settings (ratio turned all the way down)and use the gains to turn the master up after you have exported the mixdown
Normalising is like putting a limiter on your master without being able to fiddle with the settings to make it fit.. it may work but it may also take away all the punch from your track

Edit: hope this makes sense im trying to write this while at work

I dont think you know what normalising does, its nothing like a limiter, it wont take the punch out of your track, the mix will sound exactly the same. All it does is raise the highest peak of the whole track to 0.0db. so it will raise the peak from say 4db, to 0db, so everything else will be raise by 4db too, everything is raised the same, unlike limiting where everything is squashed, and peaks will be stopped and everything else will be raised closer to the peaks, which can take punch out of the mix.

[deadly_habit]

normalize or limit post having a good mixdown
it's good for djs you send stuff to

[mthrfnk]

if you dont want to master your own stuff or send it away to be mastered then you dont need to allow room for compressors/limiters to be turning everything up but you should still export with a bit of headroom, just use a limiter or compressor with very light settings (ratio turned all the way down)and use the gains to turn the master up after you have exported the mixdown
Normalising is like putting a limiter on your master without being able to fiddle with the settings to make it fit.. it may work but it may also take away all the punch from your track

Edit: hope this makes sense im trying to write this while at work

I dont think you know what normalising does, its nothing like a limiter, it wont take the punch out of your track, the mix will sound exactly the same. All it does is raise the highest peak of the whole track to 0.0db. so it will raise the peak from say 4db, to 0db, so everything else will be raise by 4db too, everything is raised the same, unlike limiting where everything is squashed, and peaks will be stopped and everything else will be raised closer to the peaks, which can take punch out of the mix.

Basically what I posted at the start of the thread...

[alpz]

If I have a limiter on my master simply to prevent clipping and peaks past 0db, then wouldn't normalizing do literally nothing? If so, then why is it a faux pas to use? Simply because it's redundant? When I export my tracks (that aren't copies meant for future mastering), I leave Normalize checked so that just in case the level is slightly lower than odb it will bring it to that without any damage done to the sound. Is this not correct?

[deadly_habit]

you should aim for a mixdown with headroom from -3 to -6 dbs so a ME can do his job
once you have that you can normalize/limit etc to hearts content to send to djs etc

[skimpi]

if you dont want to master your own stuff or send it away to be mastered then you dont need to allow room for compressors/limiters to be turning everything up but you should still export with a bit of headroom, just use a limiter or compressor with very light settings (ratio turned all the way down)and use the gains to turn the master up after you have exported the mixdown
Normalising is like putting a limiter on your master without being able to fiddle with the settings to make it fit.. it may work but it may also take away all the punch from your track

Edit: hope this makes sense im trying to write this while at work

I dont think you know what normalising does, its nothing like a limiter, it wont take the punch out of your track, the mix will sound exactly the same. All it does is raise the highest peak of the whole track to 0.0db. so it will raise the peak from say 4db, to 0db, so everything else will be raise by 4db too, everything is raised the same, unlike limiting where everything is squashed, and peaks will be stopped and everything else will be raised closer to the peaks, which can take punch out of the mix.

Basically what I posted at the start of the thread...

yeah, I was just pointing out he was wrong lol

[deadly_habit]

people seriously don't know normalizing is just like turning up the volume?
people normalizing is just finding the peak of a tune and making it 0db
it's just turning up the levels

[Almighty Alias]

can't belive a thread on normalizing got two pages so far.

[Mad_EP]

people seriously don't know normalizing is just like turning up the volume?
people normalizing is just finding the peak of a tune and making it 0db
it's just turning up the levels

That's quite literally *exactly* what I was going to post.... I mean, it isn't like Normalizing is Lossless or anything... it is simply the digi-equivalent of turning up the volume knob (with no chance of distortion).

I mean ... OK - I kinda get what Dave-Sharm is getting at... in that it is yet another process to put audio through (more equations = more chances for error)... but we are talking about pretty minimal risk here.

I don't use it for everything... but for the samples I use it for, etc... there really isn't much danger of it corrupting the file.

[mthrfnk]

It's like everyone is posting the same thing :O

[didi]

people seriously don't know normalizing is just like turning up the volume?
people normalizing is just finding the peak of a tune and making it 0db
it's just turning up the levels

That's quite literally *exactly* what I was going to post.... I mean, it isn't like Normalizing is Lossless or anything... it is simply the digi-equivalent of turning up the volume knob (with no chance of distortion).

I mean ... OK - I kinda get what Dave-Sharm is getting at... in that it is yet another process to put audio through (more equations = more chances for error)... but we are talking about pretty minimal risk here.

I don't use it for everything... but for the samples I use it for, etc... there really isn't much danger of it corrupting the file.

I normalize samples for my library, but if you want to send a track to a dj for example, your mix has left it peaking at -10dbfs, and you want to make it louder, why not just use the output knob of the limiter you're using to raise the volume?

Raising the 2buss volume is a job for the mastering process not the mixing process, and in the mastering process, you should not need normalizing to achieve the level you want.

[alpz]

I think where people are getting confused (I know it's why I posted), is because it was said to never normalize. But if normalization doesn't do anything besides raise the volume slightly then that seems like a very harsh reaction when it's really doing fuck-all.

[elyhess]

haha back in the day when i used logic, normalization was auto-selected, every one of my tracks came out blasted as fuck, glad i finally learned wtf that stupid shit did.

[JTMMusicuk]

Edit: doesnt matter

[didi]

I think where people are getting confused (I know it's why I posted), is because it was said to never normalize. But if normalization doesn't do anything besides raise the volume slightly then that seems like a very harsh reaction when it's really doing fuck-all.

I suppose that it was a harsh reaction but there should never be the need to normalise, that's the point that is being got across

[hasezwei]

people seriously don't know normalizing is just like turning up the volume?
people normalizing is just finding the peak of a tune and making it 0db
it's just turning up the levels

this.

seriously what the fuck man??
some of the shit thats been said in this thread...

[elyhess]

me no like normalization...

[elyhess]

me no like normalization...