Loudness Normalization

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Use the Loudness Normalization effect to ... TBP

Accessed by: Effect > Normalize...

Normalize

TBP When this box is checked ...

Normalize stereo channels independently

When this box is unchecked (the default), Normalize will work on the channels of a stereo track as a pair and change the level of both channels by the same amount. Use this if your audio is already correctly balanced as this mode will preserve its original stereo balance.

When this box is checked, Normalize will adjust the amplitude separately for the left and right channels of a stereo track. This is useful for correcting stereo recordings of LPs and cassettes which may be unbalanced, as long as significant clicks are removed first.

Treat mono as dual-mono

TBP When this box is checked ...} This is recommended (and thus set "on" by default ...

Buttons

Clicking on the command buttons give the following results:

• Presets & Settings gives a dropdown menu enabling you to manage presets for the tool and to see some detail about the tool. For details see Manage presets
• Preview plays a short preview of what the audio would sound like if the effect is applied with the current settings, without making actual changes to the audio. The length of preview is determined by your setting in Edit > Preferences > Playback, the default setting is 6 seconds.
• OK applies the effect to the selected audio with the current effect settings and closes the dialog
• Cancel aborts the effect and leaves the audio unchanged, closing the dialog

Tips Workflow order Immediately after recording capture (or import) of your audio this effect should be used solely to remove any DC offset that may be present with no amplitude adjustment applied at this stage. Adjusting the audio's maximum amplitude with this effect is normally best performed as a final editing step prior to export of the production audio. Normalizing multiple audio tracks If you select multiple tracks and apply the Normalize effect, then all audio tracks will be independently normalized to the same peak level. For example, if you set "Normalize Maximum Amplitude to:" 0.0 dB, every selected audio track will be normalized to 0.0 dB, irrespective of its original level. Whatever peak volume differences there were between the tracks will be removed. Difference from the Amplify... effect With Amplify, if you select multiple tracks and apply the effect, then all audio tracks will be amplified by the same amount thus preserving the balance between the tracks. Normalize offers the option to remove DC offset, Amplify does not offer that option. Normalize does not allow clipping above 0 dB, but Amplify does. For a more thorough discussion of differences, see Amplify and Normalize.

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