Tag: audio gain normalization

Digital audio normalization


Free Download Mp4Gain
picture

Digital audio normalization

In the last decade the term digital audio normalization has become popular. You could say that most people have a vague idea of ​​what they mean. However, it is important to understand some concepts that relate very closely to the issue of the volume gain of an audio file.

One of these issues is audio quality, so we think it is very important to start by explaining what kilobytes per second means.

It is not difficult to understand this concept, however very few people understand it and much less people manage to understand

So let’s try to understand what the subject of kilobytes per second means and how it impacts the quality of an audio file of any format.

This will allow us to have a greater vision to understand the issue of volume, digital audio normalization and loudness given that all this is closely related to audio quality.

So let’s begin to understand why at higher kilobytes per second we will usually have better audio quality.

For this it is necessary to use some examples. But first we need to understand that the greater amount of kilo bytes per second means a greater amount of information per second.

Many will ask And why more information per second synonymous with better audio or video quality?

For that it is important to keep in mind that audio or video files are capturing information and this information is usually very rich in data. For example, the amount of data per second in the performance of a musical group with five or six instruments is quite a lot. Or say the information per second in an image What is very many. So if we lower the number of bytes per second we are reducing the amount of information which impoverish our audio or video file.

The war of volume

For some years now, music recording companies have detected that people listen as a synonym for quality if there is a greater volume And then they have opted for the strategy of increasing the volume of the music they record a little more and produce.

If we had a graphic that will show us the volume and loudness that music used to have in the 70s and we were comparing by decade we could see that the loudness and volume level and volume gain have been increasing decade after decade.

This as I mentioned produces a deceptive effect of perception in the human being that confuses an increase in volume with an increase in audio quality.

And this has been called the war of volume because as we mentioned they have gradually increased the volume level of musical productions to make it appear that they have a higher sound quality.

And how does this compare to bytes per second? As it happens that the amount of information per second does really determine a higher quality and does not need an artificial increase in volume to appear to have a higher quality of digital audio.

So a modern digital audio normalization like the one offered by mp4gain is not misleading, but tries to ensure that each musical passage and each instrument have their optimum volume so that the loudness is constant and so that the quality is the best possible.


Free Download Mp4Gain
picture


Mp4Gain Main Window
picture


Mp4Gain Features
picture


Free Download Mp4Gain
picture

Audio normalization

Audio normalization

The concern to achieve an adequate sound in the music and a correct balance of the volume levels is something that actually takes centuries.

As soon as the first string quartets or the first symphony orchestras were formed, it was detected that there was a need to maintain an adequate balance of the volumes of each instrument section.
In fact, it is not accidental with a symphony orchestra to have a certain amount of each of the instruments, nor is it accidental that they are accommodated in the way they are accommodated when they are going to play a symphonic concert.

The reason for this is to achieve an adequate balance to the sound of the complete musical piece and it is something that has been thoroughly studied for many centuries.
That is, the human being many years ago of text, what was important to take care of the loudness of each part of a musical piece And of course the global musical work.

Hence we have become accustomed to musical dynamics, What is it that music has more intense moments and softer moments but must be audible all the time, it must be something that is not taken lightly.

Great masters of classical music paid a lot of attention and that is how it was achieved that symphonic orchestras were formed from the amount of instruments that are formed and that were accommodated in a specific way in order to achieve adequate volume management.

This has generated that our ear is used to hearing an adequate musical balance with the correct audio levels and when that is not so we detect that there is a problem and we seek to solve it.

With modern technology and the emergence of digitized music it has been very noticeable for all people that it has become an almost indispensable necessity to normalize the audio.

Normalizing the audio means achieving a standardization where the highest and lowest levels are maintained within a certain standard or certain limits so that it is audible and pleasant for us to listen to all the musical parts that make up a song.

The normalization of the audio has evolved since the music that at first was simply looking for the highest volume peaks was digitized and now in programs such as mp4gain it has achieved very important sophistication that resembles a compression mix, with the use of limiters, and an adequate management of the volume gain of each of the instruments and sounds that form a song.

In other words, we are facing much more modern and advanced algorithms that manage to normalize the audio of music files and videos, even being able to convert from one format to another without problem and normalizing it at the same time. Even The Advance are modern What can perfectly modify the speed of the audio without affecting the Pitch and vice versa.

If you need to achieve the normalization of the audio of a video in the most popular formats of an audio file in the most popular formats the solution is mp4gain which will allow you to easily convert to the format you want and normalize in the most efficient way that exists in the moment your audio or your favorite video.

How does a modern mp3 normalization really work and why is it superior?

Actually we will refer to an audio normalization in general, regardless of the format.

normalize volume

-First attempts to normalize the audio

As soon as the digital format emerged and people were able to store audio files on their computers, it was necessary to encode them to save space, without losing quality.

This is how formats such as mp3 emerged, because they managed to make the same song occupy 10 times less space than a wav format, and if it was well coded and / or with a quality encoder, it sounded practically the same. It was gained in space and the loss of quality was practically zero.

For this it was necessary to maintain a samplerate of at least 44,100 kHz and a bitrate of at least 128.

Initially the most accessible format was the mp3 and although later other formats have emerged (even looseless like FLAC), the mp3 continues to take the place of favorite.

normalize

But when a person listens one song after another, he will soon perceive differences in the sonority of these songs. It seems that the volume level is not even, and that is when it becomes necessary to normalize, to avoid having to manually correct the audio volume level of each song by turning the volume knob.

Even Spotify has had to incorporate some normalize option to avoid these annoying volume gain level changes between songs.

The difference is that Spotify only normalizes the volume while playing the songs, so if we stored them on our hard drive, the volumes would remain uneven.

-The solution of volume peaks

The first attempts to normalize the audio of an mp3 were inefficient, they only looked for the peak of a song and amplified it all to the point where those peaks did not distort.

But this did not eliminate the perception that one song would sound louder than others.

Over time the volume level normalization algorithms have been refined and have become more subtle and complex. They have been achieving similar results to those obtained by the great sound consoles in musical concerts, where the music is highly processed to – among other things – make the volume levels are even and unchanged, and also achieve a sussuro of The singer’s voice is audivble even if the battery gives tremendous blows in a roll.

Mp4Gain has come to obtain these results, without the need for you to invest thousands of dollars in hardware like these musical groups or large radio stations do.

Today, audio normalization really is a combination of compression, limiters and normalization, which achieves an amazing result. Far from those first attempts to level the volume gain of each song to avoid big differences.