Do you Normalize?

[Lone Wolf]

I have been re-ripping my discs to 320 as some of them were at 128 and others at 192 and have been wondering about using a program called MP3 Gain which will set the volume of the MP3 to a given DB.

Was thinking about 90db which is about as loud as you can get before clipping.

Has anyone else done this? Is it a good idea? I thought so that way I wouldn't be jumping at the knobs to raise or lower the volume for different songs.

Let me hear your thoughts.

 

[c. staley]

I suppose you could and it might make it easier for you, but there are so many singers that sing the same songs over and over again, I've pretty much got it in my head which songs and/or brands are recorded at different levels so it's really not a problem for me. I'd rather do the adjustment manually... and the rotation manually.... but that's just my style, it may not be yours.

 

[Hank Davidson]

I tried it before and ended up re-ripping a lot of stuff. It's not an exact science. Sometimes tracks end up sounding over-driven. But, there are certain labels or original recordings that need tweaking. Most of these tracks are from the early '70s and back. The problem is too often, all you're really doing is cranking up a poorly mastered recording. Always check for remastered editions of notable artists.

**Just noticed this was a karaoke post**

The above opinion applies to audio CDs.

 

[Scott Harris]

You should use the forum search feature and find the long thread about this from a couple of months ago. MP3 Gain does not "normalize" it simply changes the gain level setting in the MP3 file and is totally reversible. The discussion will provide many points of view about its use and about the controversial clipping detection.

After doing a lot of testing I now use 93db as my default setting for all songs. If any are displayed as clipping I then listen to the track and may drop the gain for that song down until it sounds clean if required.


Scott

 

[jokerswild]

I used mp3gain on my karaoke files before zipping them up but haven't used it on any of the new stuff I've bough recently and honestly I can't tell the difference... from track to track even with the ones I know I've run thru

 

[Guest]

I can't normalize anymore after all dealing with death and disease is not normal :D:D:D:D:D

Seriously I use mp3gain on my mp3's and I'm quite satisfied. Now that I'm redoing things to wav and mp3 in Sound Forge, I just normalize there and do a second check with mp3gain but no corrections have been needed.

 

[mikemerlin]

I use SAM Party DJ and it has volume normalization for all tracks. Every song I play is consistent in level. With this being said if you're doing Karoake I don't know how appropriate an application SAM would be