Should You Be Normalizing Your Audio? 

Maaaaaannnn Alex, you are a life saver! I’ve been using normalize to -.01 DB on all my dialogue tracks 😭😭. Thanks for giving some clarity on what it does and best/worst use case!

I was just having that noise floor problem with my dialogue. This video cleared everything up for me. Thank you so much. Your content is awesome. Super informative

Wanted to say thanks for the variety in terms of in depth and surface level content. These shorter videos are a bit easier for beginners like me to consume and learn before trying to really listen in on your longer content.

the video is 3:55 BUT it took me so much longer to understand it because I had to keep looking things up. The video is so compact, but there is so much information in here! Thank you so much for this!

This is by far the best and simplest advice i've heard on the subject. Thank you!

Thank you yet again, as i dive into this world of editing your information has been of amazing value.

Thanks dude, i've been normalising my voice-over this whole time and it was definitely doing more damage then good!

Excellent information - stuff that I would not have thought of! Learnt a lot, thanks.

Thanks for the refresher on the subject and getting directly to the point.

A really good explaination of this tool with real cases presented. Thanks.

Good advice... I was normalizing all the time on my final mix file.

Thank you, this clears up a lot for me!

The video I’m secretly waiting for you to make would be. A Rode videomic NTG using USB into final cut using the voiceover option and applying all types of stuff to make a dialogue sound good. I like using that option because it’s super quick in my basement studio.

Always learning from your videos!

Thank you, that was very useful. I had never really understood where normalisation came in the workflow. In a related note, what is your take on "Loudness", specifically how do you prepare your videos to meet RU-vid loudness requirements?

I'm a podcast editor and agree 100% with your best practices for normalization. What I like to do with dialogue tracks is loudness match them all to -23LUFS as part of a file prep process that also includes mouth de-clicking, and mild noise reduction using iZotope RX.

This is good stuff. But I see a lot of tutorials using normalization for dialogues. Now I'm confused. Could you share your workflow on dialogue tracks . TIA

Excellent tutorial, thanks...

well-presented info. thank you.

External .wav recording vs internal .aac camera recoreing in regards to audio quality and dynamic range if preamps and everything else is equal. Struggling with which to use, it's nice to not have to sync.

Confused. One person says never use a gate, another says to use it. One says to normalize, one does not. Who do you go by?

As an audience, I will like peak-normalisation as a secondary volume control knob to avoid getting shocked by sudden Loud spikes when watching a movie. Normalisation knob for the centre speaker for some movies with unintelligible dialogue and RMS-normalisation knob for the surround speakers. That's from my understanding of your explaination. Now I have to search for video playback software using a computer. Probably post-production video editing software... I don't do production though.

Hey Alex! I really like your videos! I would like to know what you think about the loudness normalization for example in davinci resolve with the EBU R128 standard. I don´t know what to think about stuff like that. On the one hand it is important to get the loudness correct for youtube for example but like you said in the video it can destroy your whole mix if you are doing it on the wrong parts... cheers from Germany!

Situation: I want to make a more clear distinction between the writing process and mixing the song I wrote. Let's say I have a song with a variety of transients and ambience. I think of printing/bouncing all the ingredients of the song I am done writing with, so I make stems out of them to really start mixing. Should I normalize the audio when bouncing the stems? I understand this will throw off my mix balance I had during writing, but that's okay, I didn't start mixing at that point yet. Thoughts? :D

Great video as usual. Quick question totally unrelated, what is the fader board you are using with your DAW and that we see in your back ground?

Thankyou for the help I have a question Why do some vocals don’t want to normalize?

I feel like once I had software with the option to normalize I used it often. These days it’s rare that I use it for the type of work I do.

thanks again for a great video, but I have a question to ask, every time I mount lav on someone I have clothes move rattle or some different destruction, is there a way to handle that except tape and is it a known issue or im just doing it terribly wrong?

Hi, Alex. I wonder what kind of a speaker stands youre using? Im looking for something thats not gonna take away all the space but bold at the same time.

I’m just starting out and your videos greatly helps ! I just need your opinion on Rode NTG-5 , as this is the mic I can afford at the moment . Is it any good in its range ?

how about normalizing audio for RU-vid? any tips?

These are so helpful!

Sir, I loved your video.! But I have a question to you. Please help me out. Should I normalize my audio. I am a teacher and I create educational RU-vid videos ? And I use boya M1 mic.

to be honest perfectly honest you should NOT be normalizing your audio in fact if your mic is setup perfectly it will AUTO NORMALIZE YOUR AUDIO. If you Flat Line you'll get noise even with a Noise Gate device or Iolator in fact Gain is what causes Noise if your equipment is setup right your volume should be around 70% with like a 10% gain boost ((Remember what I said about gain tho)) on your Line input Mic Channel 1/2 and your quality should match your recorder 192000 khz, 24 or 32 bit. If you see a Volume Wave in live recording with no hiss or buzz or noise than your good. If still problem with noise well I use a Pyle Noise Isolation DI Box. Works like a Charm...

When I edit audio in Audacity (like a song from my favorite band for example) can normalization be a good method to prevent clipping?

well explained! subscribed! btw you look like serj tankian from SOAD :)

What is this LUFS and true peak?

Absolutely! There is no legitimate reason not to . . . normalize all audio to True Peak. I use -1dB. Then adjust levels. Why leave a wimpy or inconsistent level? It blows my mind that some major DAWs do not have a normalize feature.

Nice video!

ALEX...YOU GAVE US THE INFORMATION WE WANTED BACKWARDS....GIVE US THE ANSWER QUICKER THEN EXPOUND

So everything but voice gets normalized?

Good stuff Bruh-bruh

Please answer sir should we amplify first nd denoise later or denoise first and amplify later? I'm confused which gives better results? Are there presets available for parametric equaliser I find it difficult to do tweak it manually

Hey Alex, I can´t load any of the audio previews on your website. It always says "Unable to load file".

Some people use lufs for normalizing and there are standards for RU-vid and theater.

Great

I would have thought as you are promoting an audio channel, you would sort your own audio, unless of course RU-vid's processing is causing the issue. A little constructive criticism, take out a touch around 5k to remove a little of the sibilance. (SPTF)

Hey Alex, if you make a course for a million dollars it'll be totally worth it! Please make it affordable so we can access it when you do. I feel it coming, you rock!

Nothing about my audio is normal anyway

thank you random bald man