On Monday 19 March 2012 09:23:05 am Rob Landry wrote: > What normalization levels do folks here use?
I'd expect almost as many answers, and as many reasons, as there are subscribers to the list ! Mine follows. > I just discovered that one client of mine nornmalizes everything to -13 dB > while another client normalizes to -18 dB. Remember, "normalization" is to make things *normal* !! It's not about "loudness," nor dynamic range, nor any arbitrarily chosen number based on any arbitrarily chosen reasoning. Those things are called "audio processing" and ( IMHO ) belong in the production room only. ( also the reason for hiring a production rat ) I've been out voted, and most audio processing takes place in the on-air transmission chain. Wrong, but still the "default" standard in todays plant. Also, true production rats are far and few between these days. Apparently, it's cheaper than quality, caring, and doing things right. ( certainly "cheaper" if using the derogatory sense ) The sole reason to normalize, is to take a recording made at non-standard level ( for your plant ) and adjust it to more closely approach "normal" for your plant, your standard level. ( note that "ears" are irrelevant. That's a creative interpretation, and the job of the production rat, hence has nothing to do with normalization ) It's one of the reasons the Orban 424 was one of my favorite pieces of gear in the analog days. In the real "old" days, someone rode gain on a dub. ( again, our rat ) Now, it's automagic thanks to the power and versatility of computers. ( which should be a tool to allow the production rat to do what he/she does best, but instead has been an excuse to fire him/her, and put artistic interpretation into the hands of the absolutely LEAST qualified to have it, computers and engineers ) In the old days, standard level was zero. ( a nice, round, number ) 0 dBm in 600 ohms, largely because the telephone company was an integral part of STL, and *their* standard was 0 in 600. ( which allowed 10 db below *noteable* cross-talk problems ) Then, the Japanese misinterpreted a translation, and adopted 0 dbV in 1K, which is roughly +4. Since they were obviously so much smarter than we who invented the stuff are, our stuff all migrated to +4 to dumb down our systems to their superior standards. ( and absolutely everything needed re-normalized as a result ) ( AND caused cross-talk problems, as we knew it would ) Note that in those days "Made in Japan" meant what today "Made in China" means. Cheap junk that can not stand the rigors of extremely light usage, if it works at all. Today, digital systems redefined 0 dbv as all 1's. In the old days, we allowed ( typically ) somewhere between 22 and 26 db above standard ( 0 ) to clip, knowing that peak to average VU is something like 4:1 ( depending on content ) Since digital systems have NO headroom, and do not clip gracefully, AND define 0 as clip, the question *really* becomes "how much headroom is prudent to allow ?" above 0 VU. 0 VU has also become almost irrelevant, so headroom has shrunk to 12 db or so below clip, hence a "standard" normalization level of -13, or about 1 db margin. ( or about 3:1 knowing that 4:1 is a prudent minimum ) Cutting edge ? You bet ! A 1 db mistake, and you have total crap. A tad too close to the edge for my taste, in a professional environment. With digital systems, the noise floor has also gone down a couple decades or more, so there is no valid reason to normalize at anything above -20 or -24 really, but pursuit of "loudness" in systems that fall apart when pursuing loudness, but really, REALLY shine when pursuing dynamic range, life, and vibrance has resulted in pushing the limits. Therefore, you find "normalization" to anything between -12 and about -24 these days, depending on who makes the decision. Therefore the only really important consideration between your -13 and -18 clients is to keep the -18 in the -18 plant, and the -13 in the -13 plant. For any given plant, a valid question is at what level is the bulk of your material sourced ? Normalize to that level, as it keeps the total work load to minimum, and the bulk of the material needs no attention at all. -- Cowboy http://cowboy.cwf1.com _______________________________________________ Rivendell-dev mailing list [email protected] http://lists.rivendellaudio.org/mailman/listinfo/rivendell-dev
