Hi,

it annoys the heck out of me that most of my drumsamples vary in amplitute A LOT, so I thought that maybe it's a good idea to losslessly batch level my whole drum library to a certain amplitude. I also quite often forget to attenuate the pre fader input, so this would preferably set to analog line level, so at least my drums come in all processors at the 'wanted' level... Right? I've found several tools that do this, also some take into account the new broadcasting standards ebu r128 if i recall correct etc.

Is this a good idea or a foolish one? Also would I process my sounds to those new standards or is it useless for loose one shots?

Thanks!

 

Anyone?

 

You mean batch normalize to certain db? What about the samples with loud attack but low volume in the rest of the sound?

 

Yeah, but negative normalisation, I want to make my drums quiter in volume actually. IDK, I'm looking for an application that does this transparently, so I guess the louder would get quiter and the low volume even softer, but none of the 'characteristics' of the sound would be touched, just the waveform getting 'smaller'...

 

I would look at Sox first, its a command line tool and has the normalize function. I don't use one-shots and rely on drum-samplers like Superior Drummer or Addictive Drums so I have never faced this kind of problem myself.

 

All samples have different loudness.

Normalization is a destructive process.

24bit has 144dBFS of dynamics. Enough to have some "low loudness samples", as well as untreated and dynamic samples.

Deal with it. Adjust volume in your sampler, clip gain, fader, gain, whatever.
My "three" cents.

 

Last edited: Dec 3, 2016

Yes, I understand it's destructive, but is that also the case if you lower the amplitude? If I understand correct it's favourable for analog emulated plugins to feed them -18db volume because that's their 'line level(?!)', so I figured that adjusting my whole drum library to this level (if possible losslessly) at least I wouldn't have to worry about things going in too hot... after that i'll just slap on meter plugs perception and keep it that volume and mix/tweak transparently.

Good idea?

See I'm busy making a personal workflow that allows me to have the best sounding stuff as quick as I can so I can focus on just making beats. Gain staging takes imo valueable time better spend making music and this way I thought I'd tackle that problem while not having to worry about it too much... Thanks, peace from Amsterdam!

 

The only safe batch-process to do is normalize (which is also destructive as was pointed out above), and that is not a big task to do in a DAW while working on a song. The ideal gain leveling that you would need should never be done automatically as it will permanently lock your samples to certain levels, as the levels need to be set in context of the song. Having said that, I rely on presets of fx-chains in my DAW which I load depending on the situation. Like I would make one preset of eq> comp > Lim for a drum track when using a drum VI, bunch of others for vocals etc.