EQ - Normalisation - Compression - Limiting . . . might be useful to understand the differences.

 

Didn't gave that mind blurp much thought,
determine the noise floor, trim the silences out of the source, determine the dynamic range & adjust the volume of the source accordingly.

the hard part would be determing the right time scales to get a coherent (read: usefull) result. aside from the the assumptionsthe dev would have to make for the choosen target

 

I normalize after I finish a my psudo mastering, never an individual track, as a test to see how many decibels I came close to 0 dB in my peaks. I guess it makes no sense to do so outside of curiosity to see the difference in my meters and what Wavepad can subtract from the ceiling.

 

Is this the same guy who just 2 days ago argued back and forth with me, and insisted that "loudness" normalization (not peak normalization) was non-destructive and doesn't kill dynamics?
https://audiosex.pro/threads/loudness-levels-2-masters-what-levels-do-you-aim-at.41639/

Question: If you have a dynamic song that averages -18 LUFS with a peak output at -1dB and you want a version of that song at -14 LUFS.. obviously peak normalizing it from -1dB to 0dB isn't going to get you from -18 LUFS to -14 LUFS. So what do you think a loudness normalization tool is going to do to it to bring it up to -14 LUFS?

 

The term loudness normalization is in my experience used when bringing multiple tracks all into the same arbitrary range of loudness, rather than meaning bringing a single track into some predefined standard of loudness.

 

There will be no loudness normalization applied, as it is below -14LUFS. Loudness normalization is affecting tracks that are louder than -14LUFS.

 

With both peak and loudness normalization what's raised or lowered is dependent upon the target that is set. A loudness normalizer works internally, it doesn't just raise or lower the the overall peak. Even if you use a loudness normalizer to batch process a -12 LUFS song and a -16 LUFS song to meet a target of -14 LUFS for Spotify.. it's going to independently lower the perceived loudness of one, and raise the other, forcing both to meet the target. Even if the -16 LUFS song already has a highest peak of 0dB a "loudness" normalizer will get it to -14 LUFS.. destructively. Loudness normalizers don't just turn the volume up or down.. they make so-called "corrective" adjustments to the dynamic of the song/s (auto-compression) to meet the targeted LUFS average (perceived loudness).

 

Last edited: Nov 2, 2018

"By using the “loudest song method” of Album Normalization to balance albums against each other, TIDAL have ensured not only that their normalization can’t be “gamed”, and the artistic intentions of the artists are preserved, but also that their overall loudness level will comply with the AES streaming loudness recommendations.

"Using Album Normalization to the loudest song (@ -14 LUFS) gives a better user experience, is simpler and easier to understand, and is preferred by over 80% of users! "

http://productionadvice.co.uk/tidal-normalization-upgrade/

 

Drifting off-topic, but Spotify says:

"My album is deliberately mastered to have some tracks softer than others. Will this get lost on Spotify?
Nope!

When a user plays your album, we normalize the loudness level of that album at the same time. The entire album will play back at -14 dB LUFS from start to finish, and the gain compensation applied by Spotify won’t change between tracks. This means the softer tracks will be just as soft as you intend them to be.

However, if the user plays your album in shuffle, or a track from it in between tracks from other albums (such as in a playlist), we can’t apply album normalization so track level adjustments are used instead."

https://artists.spotify.com/faq/mas...stered-to-have-some-tracks-softer-than-others

 

...even in Shuffle mode...

"And we learned yesterday that their new loudness normalisation method is live now – by default, in every new install of their player application on iOS or Android devices. All the time – even in Shuffle mode – and they’re working on the same system in their desktop application, too."