normalized audio Archives

Why normalize an audio or a video?

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People are desperately searching for a way to avoid having problems with the audio, either because it sounds unevenly loud, or because it is too low or too loud.

Loudness Normalization

If someone asks, why normalize a video to a song or audio, the answer is simple: their ears will ask. You will quickly notice that something is not right in relation to the volume of that video or audio, compared to the others and many times, the audio is not even internally correct. It is too strident or hardly heard due to its low loudness.

Audio Normalization

Video Boost volume

Today we live in an era where an enormous amount of digital videos and audios are consumed and the process of producing them digitally has caused the sound levels of videos or songs to present problems and the user perceives that they must correct them, that they must boost the loudness or boost the basss or boost the volume level.

Of course, normalizing in 2019 or 2020 does not mean the same as what normalizing volume or loudness meant in 2004, for example. Not even the equipment is the same, the devices have improved too much, people have become demanding, people have educated their ears in the technical sense and today they require the ability to normalize the audio as only the Mp4Gain can offer.

Boost the loudness of videos and audios.

Normalizing the audio level today requires a very modern algorithm, which is capable of providing a high level of quality audio, according to current devices and those that will come in the future.

Before, the audio began to normalize simply by measuring the sound peaks, a very elementary system. Nothing to do with the sophistication that Mp4Gain offers.

Because in addition, when compressing the files so that they occupy less space (audio or video files) almost all discard information. Therefore, the normalization must take into account all this, to achieve a true audio optimization. Even getting some sounds that were practically inaudible to be heard again.

Another effect that applies a lot when compressing the audio, is the so-called masking, where some “redundant” sounds are also discarded, at least in part. So there is a depletion, especially if the file was compressed with a very low bit rate.

All of this must be taken into account when normalizing loudness today. It is not about normalizing the overall loudness only, but by frequencies. Anyway, the process is complex nowadays but it manages to correct those things that we want to correct with respect to loudness and boost the volume level, both of videos and songs and audios in general, of the most successful and popular formats.

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Normalize or improve the volume of audio or video files

When vinyl records existed, music was recorded in an analog way, nobody ever thought about the space they occupied, because the amount of information was not a variable that will be taken into account.

On the other hand, when a new technology appeared that would allow the audio to be digitized, the space occupied by such information did have relevance.

Especially when it was stored on desktop computers that had hard drives that had little space.

Then the idea arose to compress the music trying to discard information but always trying that this process would not be noticeable.

But an important part of the process that is used to compress music is based on volume.
The volume of the different sounds is measured assuming that when there is a louder sound, the other sounds nearby at that frequency can be eliminated without the human being noticing it.

And in general the process of eliminating information added to what has been called the war of the volume What made the songs to be recorded a higher volume each time, have generated that the collections of audio files have very large differences in loudness between one audio file and one audio file.

And this has made it necessary to normalize the volume and loudness of the audio either from the audio files or from the video files.

Because with the video files the same thing happens: the audio that accompanies the video is also compressed and the same loss of information is suffered by what the musical files.

Therefore it does not matter if it is an MP4 or an mp3 or any other audio or video format, it is most likely necessary to normalize the volume to obtain an adequate loudness.

This is why it is so common that even batch normalization is done.
In other words, many audio or video files are normalized at the same time because people have large audio or video connections that need loudness normalization to correct loudness and volume problems.

Mp4gain is the only and the most efficient program that has the ability to normalize the loudness of most of the audio and video formats.

In turn, mp4gain is an audio converter and a video converter and even a converter. What can extract audio from a video file AND transfer it to an audio format.

Extract the audio from an MP4 and convert it into an mp3 with high sound quality.

The audio compressor or normalizer

Adjust volume level

Many instruments tend to be very dynamic, and when recorded can result in large note amplitudes, some very strong and some very weak. We could imagine following the volume of each of these tracks through the fader race of our console, but even with a very good automation system, this task could be very long and very complicated.
This is where the compressor or normalizer comes in. It is used to restrict the dynamics of an audio signal, making it easier to find a more stable level in the mix and to have an optimal volume level.

Here is the diagram of a sound wave recorded without compression and with compression:

How to adjust a compressor?

As you can see, when applying compression, the dynamic range of this wave has been reduced. In the original wave, the difference between the lowest amplitude and the highest amplitude is around 15 dB. After applying compression, the dynamics are only 5 dB. What happens is that the compressor detects and compresses the loudest sounds in the wave. After compressing these louder sounds, I can raise the entire level of the wave, so that the weak and strong notes are leveled out in the rest of the mix.

Threshold :

Compressors, like all dynamic processors, including the normalizer, work by measuring the amplitude of an incoming signal relative to a reaction point that must be configured to tell the compressor when to start operating. This reaction point is called the threshold.

Consider our example of watching TV and turning the volume down when advertising. We all have our own threshold that tells us when a sound is too loud and that will force us to take the remote control to lower the volume. This volume level is our threshold. The threshold that is, in fact, the most important component of any dynamic processor.

How to adjust a compressor?

In a compressor, a signal level above the threshold will activate the compressor, while a lower signal level remains unchanged

What exactly is normalizing?

Music is distinguished by what is often called “dynamic” and which refers to the changes (more or less abrupt) of the “effort” with which certain notes or passages are interpreted.
Whether it is an instrument or the voice.

singer

Any vocal performance that has been considered virtuous, in general terms, will have a dynamic that goes from very soft passages, almost whispered, to intense passages, with a high volume, singing at full voice.

At the time when vinyl existed as the option to listen to music, it was not felt (at least it went almost unnoticed) the fact of noticeable differences between the loudness or the volume of a song.

It was with the advent of digitization and the possibility of its variants (opting for different bitrates, sample rates, bitdepths, etc.) that this difference became very evident.

And with the appearance of mp3 and its distribution or exchange, at the same time that winamp and distribution lists arose, when it was inevitable and it was even started to look for solutions.

Napster

These first ones were based on the sound peaks and their results were very inefficient.

Returning to the mention of the mp3, situations such as masking (where information is removed) further marked the problem of differences in volume.

Then began to use the RMS that rather mediates the average power that the song had, more than the peaks.

Initially, it was enough to put a slower reaction level to the volume meter, to have a more general idea and less impacted by the volume peaks.

And so, the way of listening to music and considering what normalization was evolved.

Finally it appears to be somewhat closer to a mixture of a volume limiter and a compressor.

What is a volume limiter? It is a hardware (although lately there are also limiters in software version) that ensures that no peak exceeds a maximum limit.

A compressor, on the other hand, is a device or software that is used to “compact” the volume, preventing the parts with the lowest volume from being too low and at the same time preventing the high parts from exceeding a range that has been assigned. We would say that the compressor dampens the increases and decreases in volume.

To this we can add an equalization that differentiates the bands and treats them differently both in the limitation and in the compression. Each frequency band has a different treatment in the Mp4gain and that produces a very efficient result. It is NOT the only improvement offered by Mp4Gain, but this is described here. In other articles we will deal with other differences.

Mp4Gain is the best normalizer of 2020 and this is clear when using it.

Normalization of an audio file.

Normalization is used to increase or decrease the level of the song as a whole, so that its maximum volume peaks assume the indicated level.

Loudness Normalization

For example, if the maximum intensity points of the song are -3 dB (therefore well below 0, which should represent the maximum before distortion), normalizing to 0 dB means increasing the level of the entire song so that these peaks reach 0 dB.

This is the typical normalization of the peaks.

There is also RMS normalization (which takes into account not the peaks but the actual average level of the song).

Audio Normalization

AUDIO CDs, which have good dynamic possibilities (various intensity tones, from pianissimo to fortissimo), are generally recorded so that the maximum volume points are at 0 dB.

Normalizing your WAV recordings can be helpful in adjusting them to the average level of a CD in case they are too low (because you had been careful in level during recording) but one important thing to note:

Normalization of this type alters the original dynamics, that is, the reciprocal relationships between weak and strong sounds.

Although all levels are raised by the same amount, the relationship between 2 levels changes (small mathematical example:
2/5 = 0.4 ma (2 + 1) / (5 + 1) = 0.5 …

The result is that the weaker sounds, after abrupt normalization, sound much louder and those that were already playing only sound a little louder … altering the dynamic relationships that had been envisioned by those who originally recorded the music and making the sound output to lose depth.

Some types of music, generally already deficient dynamics (rock, metal, etc.) since the excursions between the minimum and maximum volume are almost never very consistent, are more “normalizable” without problems, while the genres in which there may be Large Dynamic excursions (classical music or music with passages from pianissimi to fortissimi) are more problematic.

In addition, it is necessary to take into account that if you normalize a large wav file that contains many songs (not yet divided) there can still be, even in genres with little dynamics, substantial differences, in this case between one song and another and not between different points of the same song.

So a light normalization can do and is actually used (to raise the level of the part), but it would be better to make sure you don’t need it (recording from the beginning with a good level) or at least not have too much. remember, however, that the dynamics are somewhat flattened.

Normalize with Mp4Gain

This software is capable (it is the only one that can do this) of normalizing the main audio and video formats and its standardization algorithm is by far the most efficient and the one that produces the best results.
For this reason it is used by musicians, radio broadcasters, universities, television stations, producers, etc.

What is Normalize audio?

The battle of volume

For decades, but especially in recent years, music producers discovered that by being able to manipulate volume levels on the mixing console, they were able – artificially – to get people to listen to a recording as “better” with just push the recording volume up a bit, its decibels.

Indeed, tests carried out by universities have shown that a little more volume makes the music sound “better” when listening.

Hence, in the last few decades, especially from the 80s, there has been a war to make each musical production sound louder to achieve that effect of better sound quality.

This has resulted in recordings showing extremely uneven volume levels, some sounding very loud and others sounding too low.

But today everyone wants the music to sound at high volume, to boost the volume level, to boost the volume of the song.

Even when it comes to loud music like dance music, rock, etc. trying to boost the bass, which produce an effect not only in the ear, but literally “feel” and to make people “feel” that music, the producer must be generous in the recording console and with the equalizer.

This usually results in people perceiving that their collection of musical files has uneven volume levels, that some recordings sound very loud and others sound very low in volume.

So it has become an urgent need to find an audio volume normalizer that manages to boost the music level, that manages to boost the bass and that manages to improve the sound of each music file, that makes it sound louder.

Mp4Gaines the answer. It is without a doubt the most efficient normalizer that manages to boost the volume and make it sound louder and at the same time sound at a more equal volume level.

If you are looking to improve the volume level of your audio and video files, of the main formats, not just mp3s, Mp4Gain is definitely the most powerful, modern and efficient solution.