Problem with Normalized Gain Scaling

[kathy3023]

I'm transferring LPs to my iPod and up to now, everything has been going well. My routine is: transfer the record to the PC wile removing the RIAA curve; then putting back the RIAA curve; running the EZ Clean filter; chopping the files (I do one side at a time); then using Normalize Gain Scaling to set them all to about the same level.

I just finished doing two of the four sides of a double LP. The first two sides the standard routine went fine. Then for Side Three, all of a sudden when I try to use Normalized Gain Scaling, instead of giving me the level I expect, it just bumps up the level a little bit - too low to copy over to the iPod, since I don't want to be fiddling with the volume all the time.

I've verified that the settings on the display are the same for the side three tracks as they were for the preceding ones; I saved the file without changes and restarted DC7, just in case; I cleaned the temp files saved by DC7 in case it was some sort of memory problem. And that's it.

Any suggestions?

[Craig Maier]

It sounds like somewhere on the Side 3 file that there is a tall and narrow impulse that the system is normalizing to. Often, this impulse is right at the beginning or the end of the file. You need to find that impulse and manually interpolate it out or cut it out or mute it with one of the edit menu features.

I have seen this happen here and that has always been the culprit.

Craig

[kathy3023]

Craig, I'm embarrassed because I just noticed that that is exactly what happened. It happened to be the first cut and there was a very tall spike right at the beginning, where it was difficult to see it.

I took care of it, and that was that.

Color me red.

Thank you for your response.

Kathy

[Dan McDonald]

Yes - that happens to me a lot. After the first couple of times, it sunk in that it was a common issue, and now when that happens, it's the first thing I check. I just zoom in to the first second or two and the last second or two (it can happen at the end also).

[DougMac]

Normalizing

I have one suggestion regarding normalizing. I normalize before chopping for two reasons. First, I'm lazy. It's easier to do with one pass instead of six or however many songs are on one side. Secondly, some sides are mastered in such a way that some songs are softer than others for a reason. I'm thinking of a Vivaldi Concerto album I listened to just yesterday. There's a largo movement that's played almost completely at piano. I think the loudest it gets as mp. If I normalized it separately, it wouldn't fit in the sequence correctly.

Doug

[sus4chord]

I've just made it my practice to look through the whole file before I normalize. I also normalize the whole file, because I figure the album was mastered with relative volumes for each selection. However, I do look for individual spikes and will often just do a gain change to reduce them back to where the rest of the song sits. It's generally imperceptable, but does allow normalize to work better. As has been stated, I also pay particular attention to the beginning and end of the file. Since I'm going to chop the file into individual files anyway, I will usually have a marker right before the first section and then highlight everything from the beginning of the file to the first marker and then mute it. That makes sure there are no hidden spikes at the beginning. I do the same at the end of the file as well.

Anyway, that's worked for me and it's just second nature now.

[Dan McDonald]

Yes, I agree. Always normalize the whole record, or if it's a live tape or something, the whole concert. If you normalize each song, you lose some of the artistry.

If it's a collection of different songs that were released like a "greatest hits" or something, then it's more of a judgment call.

[Dan McDonald]

One other thing I did find when I took a collection of pieces done by a friend of mine who is a classical musician (he was putting together a CD to send with his resume), was that I used the "auto leveling" function in the batch mode to level all the pieces. He was extremely happy with that result.

I had pulled stuff off of videos, DVDs, professional CDs, home recordings and various other pieces all things he had played on), and he determined the order he wanted. I burned two cds for him - one of all the pieces, with each piece normalized individually, and one with all the pieces using "auto leveling" and he was much happier with the auto leveled one.

Dan

[jfritz]

I think it depends. I have a lot of recordings of reissues of jazz and blues originally recorded on 78s where the volume levels sometimes differ markedly. In cases where each track was originally recorded separately I think it's better to normalize one at a time. For this kind of material it's almost always necessary to restore each track individually anyway. It's also usually better for this sort of stuff to normalize after all other processing. The loudest content on Paramount recordings is almost always the surface noise.

For recordings conceived and produced as a whole it's a different thing altogether.

[Dan McDonald]

I may not have been clear on mine. For that set from various sources, I normalized each one individually, then use the auto leveling.

I typically normalize at the beginning before any restoration and then when I finish the restoration process.

[Craig Maier]

Note:

The Auto-Leveler is found in the Batch Processor under the filter menu.

[Drew]

I'm curious, what level does everyone normalize to?

[Dan McDonald]

Hi Drew -
Before I do restoration work, I normalize to -2db and after restoration work I normalize to 0. I know some people keep it slightly below 0, but I find it easy enough and have never noticed any issues when I go to 0.
Dan

[quartet87]

It sure is handy that the normalize gain scaling now "remembers" its previous setting.

After applying RIAA, I peak the file at -0.5 dB and when I'm done with filtering and the file is ready to burn, I again peak it at -0.5 dB. It was just last year I discovered that the impulse and CN filters perform better when the file is at or near peak.

[Drew]

I also like the fact that it "remembers" the last setting. It's good to know that I'm not the only one who uses that same process.

Thanks for the replies.

Drew