Normalize vs Loudness Normalization in Audacity

we generally use the normalize effect to adjust the volume of a recording there is also another Effect called loudness normalization to adjust the volume level there are some differences between these two but it is important to understand both effects otherwise you will not understand the submission requirements on many platforms the normalize effect works based on the peak of the audio for example this is the peak for this recording I have chosen this recording so that we can clearly distinguish the loudest point if I play the audio it touches zero in the meter so this peak is the loudest it can be in audacity or any other audio editing software if I normalize the entire track that Peak will be adjusted and the rest of the audio will be adjusted with the peak I will go to the normalize effect and you will understand what I am saying if you look closely at the normalize configuration it says normalize Peak amplitude to we set a new value for the peak amplitude what will happen if I set minus 3 as the peak remember the peak is currently at zero and I am setting minus 3 if if you think normalize only increases volume level you will be wrong here normalize adjusts the peak so in this case it will decrease the peak and overall volume of the recording you can see the peak and other waveform decreased in vertical length after normalize so the current Peak is now minus 3 as we just set that what will happen if I normalize again to minus 60b normalize sets the volume level of the audio and does not cause any Distortion in the audio it mainly changes the volume level the tone or balance of the audio is unaffected by Norm normalize so you can normalize multiple times without altering the audio quality you cannot use every audio effect multiple times without altering the balance of the audio but with normalize it is not an issue with the value of minus 6 it will decrease further it is important to understand why normalization increases or decreases the overall volume level I will normalize this audio again I will now normalize to minus 3db so what should happen if you say it will decrease further then you have not understood normalize effect yet this time the peak and overall volume will increase because the peak was at min-6 and I set the new Peak to minus 3 so a 3db increase on the Audio Level the peak waveform controls the overall increase or decrease for example if I normalize this selection of the waveform you will see a big increase in the waveform I will normalize it to minus 3 and this time it applies only to the selected part not the whole waveform you see how the overall waveform grew on the selected part because there was more room to grow it is important to understand why this happened it is one of the key fundamentals of mastering or increasing the loudness of the Audio I will now go back to the original waveform from history if you do not know it already audacity only keeps editing history of the current session if I close audacity the history will be gone loudness normalization is an important effect in meeting requirements on many platforms many platforms specif spe ify the ls level or RMS level of the submitted audio you can see LS when I selected perceived loudness in the drop-down if I select RMS it is changed to DB if you look into ACX requirements the audio has to be in between -8 DB to -23 dbms you can set such a value using loudness normalization unlike normalize loudness normalization does not use the peak value to adjust loudness to the other parts of the audio for example if I set it to minus 18 DB for RMS you would see a uniform increase in the waveform unlike normalize loudness normalization can cause heavy clipping or Distortion in the Audio I will undo the loudness normalization and set another value I will set an RMS of minus 10 DB which will cause Distortion or clipping you can see the waveform is maxed out for the most part and clipped it was an extreme example of loudness normalization and of course you would not need to set such an extreme value but you should understand the loudness normalization can cause clipping in the audio we will see how to tackle those when it comes I suggest you do some experiments on your audio with normalize and loudness normalization confidence in using these two effects will take you a long way if you are watching this lecture on YouTube it is part of my Advanced audacity course I am giving a heavy discount on the course building phase you can pre-order this course from this by Mia coffee page I have already published some lectures on how to remove plosives efficiently you can also check the curriculum this course will take your audacity editing skills to a whole new level you will be able to edit and produce professional quality voiceovers and audiobooks confidently you will become an advanced level audacity user to use audacity to its full potential if you are editing voices for voiceover demos or YouTube or online courses I would recommend you take this course if you want to become a professional vo artist I would say it is a must-have course for you you will learn techniques like removing poing pe's or plosives and mouth clicks you will learn Advanced EQ techniques and efficient voice processing with audacity you will find the link in the description enroll in the course and give yourself an amazing opportunity to uplift your skills the discounted price is available in the pre-order phase the lat you are to pre-order the more the price will increase

Channel: Master Editor

Views: 3,490

Keywords: normalize, loudness, audacity loudness normalization, audacity normalize, audacity tutorial, loudness normalization, how to use audacity

Id: RR7fCquUDAM

Length: 5min 20sec (320 seconds)

Published: Thu Nov 16 2023