Normalizing audio on a ton of media files

[Michael Gissing]

Normailising makes peak levels to maximum, but that doesn’t mean the clips will all sound the sound volume. That is determined by content, dynamic range and use of compressor/limiters.

Not sure in mac world but there are heaps of free batch processing normalisers in the PC world which will convert aif files.

[Ron Thompson]

You can do this using Peak. I haven’t used it in a while now that I run Logic and Soundtrack Pro, but I remember Peak having a great batch feature. http://www.bias-inc.com

[John Fishback]

Michael G is right. Just normalizing will not make all the clips have the same apparent volume. For instance, if a file has a loud noise like a cough or a clap, that sound peaks much higher than the normal audio. Let’s say your average audio peaks to -12 and the clap goes to -3. In that case normalizing will raise the volume of the entire track about 3 db (so the loudest sound doesn’t clip over 0). Now, let’s say another clip has no coughs or claps and its average audio stays around -12. Then this clip’s gain will be increased about 12 db or 9 db more than the other clip. Obviously, this clip will sound much louder than the first. The only way to avoid this would be to use an audio compression plugin to restrict the peaks. You might be able to batch process that, but a compression setting that works with one clip might not sound good with another.

John

Dual 2.5 G5 4 gigs RAM OS 10.4.3 QT7.0.3
Dual Cinema 23 Radeon 9800
FCP Studio 5 (FCP5.0.4, DVDSP4.0.2, Comp2.0.1, STP1.0.2)
Huge U-320R 1TB Raid 3 firmware ENG15.BIN
ATTO UL4D driver 3.50
AJA IO driver 2.1 firmware v23-28
SonicStudio HD DAW, Yamaha DM1000, Genelec Monitors

[John Fishback]

Just found a plugin that might help. You’d have to import your files into FCP, apply the plugin and then export. https://www.wavearts.com/FinalPlug5.html

John

Dual 2.5 G5 4 gigs RAM OS 10.4.3 QT7.0.3
Dual Cinema 23 Radeon 9800
FCP Studio 5 (FCP5.0.4, DVDSP4.0.2, Comp2.0.1, STP1.0.2)
Huge U-320R 1TB Raid 3 firmware ENG15.BIN
ATTO UL4D driver 3.50
AJA IO driver 2.1 firmware v23-28
SonicStudio HD DAW, Yamaha DM1000, Genelec Monitors

[Kevin Reiner]

Thanks for your replies. what we’re using this on is our collection of spots that we want to keep online for demo purposes. The problem is that they have been digitized by a couple of different editors that all brought them in at slightly different levels. So they all were sweetened originally, but they were just brought back into the system at slightly different levels. So instead of redigitizing from a huge pile of tapes, I was hoping to do a global normalization to savea lot of time.

Does this sound like the right way to go about it?

[John Fishback]

It sound like you could just batch normalize. I know you can do that with Cleaner. I know Compressor will do batches, but I’ve never tried to just normalize audio with it. Peak was mentioned, which can normalize, but I don’t remember if it can batch process. I’m not in front of that computer. Perhaps their site would explain that.

Since you’re using this for archiving for demos, if the levels are off a bit when you put togther a reel, it’s not a big deal to even out the audio.

John

Dual 2.5 G5 4 gigs RAM OS 10.4.3 QT7.0.3
Dual Cinema 23 Radeon 9800
FCP Studio 5 (FCP5.0.4, DVDSP4.0.2, Comp2.0.1, STP1.0.2)
Huge U-320R 1TB Raid 3 firmware ENG15.BIN
ATTO UL4D driver 3.50
AJA IO driver 2.1 firmware v23-28
SonicStudio HD DAW, Yamaha DM1000, Genelec Monitors

[Ron Thompson]

yeah…the Batch Processor is under the File menu in Peak (the full version, not LE).
Open it, set your levels, output folder, and file type/extension….close Peak. Then drag all the files onto the Peak icon and the Batch Processor will go to work. I’m using 3.21…never upgraded after Soundtrack Pro was released, but I’m sure newer versions of Peak have a same (and hopefully better) batch function.

Ron