Normalize Your Audio

[Zero]

Ever get a lot of high peaks in your audio, whether it's from shouting or your mic isn't the best? Audacity has an option under Effects I believe that's called Normalize and what it does is basically evens out your audio by lowering the peaks (amplify seems to do the opposite), thus creating a more evened out audio for people to enjoy.


Summary: Normalize will even out audio level ( I use -9 dB for an even sound all the way through).

 

[Cameron Dubs]

What a great idea! We normally use a "Match Volume" effect in a paid software, which equalizes each audio file we use (we use many per video for our channel), but even then it doesn't really work 100%... I never actually thought of doing this, it's such a simple idea... Might have to try it for our next video, thanks, haha

 

[echoraven]

It's also know as "compression".

 

[WeiseGamer]

It's also know as "compression".

These are two separate effects actually.

 

[echoraven]

These are two separate effects actually.

Separate in name perhaps (not that familiar with "normalize") but conceptually they sound pretty darn close. As a musician, I'm very familiar with compression.

 

[WeiseGamer]

Separate in name perhaps (not that familiar with "normalize") but conceptually they sound pretty darn close. As a musician, I'm very familiar with compression.

From audacity:

Compressor -http://manual.audacityteam.org/o/man/compressor.html

Normalize -http://manual.audacityteam.org/o/man/normalize.html

 

[Mr.Arobel]

Nice, I always have problemes and have to choose between a too low volume or a satured one. I will try this

 

[Zero]

Nice, I always have problemes and have to choose between a too low volume or a satured one. I will try this

I normalize mine at -9 dB and then bump the audio +1.0 so it's slightly louder as the normalize can make it quiet, seems to do really well.

 

[RampaginRussian]

This is brilliant advice! I have been normalizing my audio for a little while now and it really does bring another level of quality to the video.

 

[NalaNosivad]

Just normalising if you have highly dynamic audio is really not a good idea. If you have just one extra loud part of your audio that lasts even a tenth of a second, normalising will leave the rest of it incredibly quiet.

You want to adjust the gain manually to get the average level to however loud you want it to be (letting some parts go over 0dB), then use a compressor to reduce the peaks that go past the average level you decided on.