-
Normalizing multiple audio files
I have a project that involves many voice over files, that all need to be amplified. At the end of the day, they all need to be brought to roughly the same level of roughly -8 db.
I had thought about normalizing each one, but I am under the impression that this will not amplify them equally. If one or two of the files has a relatively loud sound. Normalizing will make the overall file quieter. Am I correct.
What then is the best way to do this? To amplify by the same amount?
I am using adobe audition, and as far as I can tell, if you normalize one file (for a reference), it won’t tell you how much you amplified it by, so I can’t use that to create a reference for a batch process.
I’m sure I am not making much sense, but I guess my overall question is where can I find a good method to batch process multiple files to have them all end up at the same relative volume?
-
2 Replies
-
Hello Steve and welcome to the Cow Audio Forum.
Make copies of all of your files and try using “the Levelator” on them. Please let us know how that works for you.
https://www.conversationsnetwork.org/levelator
Regards,
Ty Ford
Cow Audio Forum Leader
Want better production audio?: Ty Ford’s Audio Bootcamp Field Guide
Ty Ford Blog: Ty Ford’s Blog -
I had thought about normalizing each one, but I am under the impression that this will not amplify them equally. If one or two of the files has a relatively loud sound. Normalizing will make the overall file quieter. Am I correct.
No, that is not correct, at least as I understand your question. If you have several files of varying peaks, and you want to get them all to peak at -8dB, then you do NOT want to “amplify them equally”. You want to amplify each one by the amount necessary to bring it to -8dB. That is the definition of “normalize”.
It sounds like you want to normalize each file to -8dB. By definition that will NOT “amplify them equally” because that would not achieve getting each of them to -8dB.
OTOH, if you mean that you want to combine all the clips and then normalize the lot all together, you are correct, it will normalize the loudest part to -8dB, and amplify all the other clips by that amount (which will mean that the rest will probably all be below -8dB)
I use the batch function in Adobe Audition to do tasks like that.
Reply to this Discussion! Login or Sign Up