Hey NFO,

I wondered why so many songs on the audioplayer sounded clipped/distorted. Ofcourse they are lower in quality than your average 128kb mp3 but my own audioplayer songs usually sound a little better.

So i took a song (otan's one in this case) trough an analyzer and i think you processed the mp3's a little too hot, look at the number of clipped samples...

Just something to think about

Dude I'm just TOO HOT, PERIOD... not just my songs, baby!

Actually, I normalize my stuff up to something like, -12db, maybe even as high as -10db... I know it makes it hot and loud and heavy, but when I was doing it down to -15 or -16, I was WAY bummed with comparisons against other songs in my collection.
[This message was edited Tue May 6 15:29:04 PDT 2003 by otan]

otan said:

Typical reply , but seriously, it's possible to normalize a file up to -.3dB with zero clipped samples. the main thing is average RMS power , this is the average 'perceived (spelled right?)' level.
This should normally be around -20dB (give or take a few dB's)

But you're right, you are just TOO HOT PERIOD!

BigThing said:

Dude you lost me right after the winky smiley.

Maybe you need more cafeine?

yep.

We're going to put those back in the wash.

Thanks for the illustration of my impatience.

BigThing said:

nope. I need about 5 years learning engineering and mastering. I went full-on digital a year ago.

Prior to this, I was a MASTER at getting the best levels on cassettes. You just get the little bird inside to peck on the tape a little softer, as the baby mammoth grinds the crank with his snout.

The problem was with the process, I believe.

The album was normalized as one long track to try to equalize all songs to be on the same levels.

Don't think that worked out right.

otan said:

OTAN u can really help me out on this...I wish u had a song of mine in ur computer so u can check what mine is and tell me what would b good 4 Normalizing mine, cuz I really try and it still sounds dumb on computer.

paisleypark4 said:

I'm tellin you, it's a crap shoot on my part.

I thought Normalizing was the same as compression, and then I thought Normalizing was the same as a limiter, and then I thought Normalizing would help me supress my homosexual thoughts ... so far, I've been wrong on every account.

otan said:

Normalizing raises the volume of a track so that the highest level of that track is 100 percent. Therefore, if a track's highest amplitude level is 80 percent, the track will be rasied by 20 percent. This way, the track is at the highest level without causing any clipping.

This should be done to each individual track, right? (i.e. drum track, baseline, vocals, etc.) However, there is the possibility of clipping when you add effects, so Cakewalk has a "3dB quieter" function to allieviate that.

Once a song is mixed down to 1 stereo audio track, we should normalize again, right?

Hey guys, I was listening on the audio player and Artist08's track had lots of pops in it. I think mine had a few as well, I can't remember.

Are our downloads that way too? I'm going to have to download my track to check, I guess, but that might be a mute point since I am revising and sending a new track next week.

VinaBlue said:

I figured it was just the player. My song is popping on the bass drum all the time. I figured, if it's just the preview track, no biggie. Haven't downloaded it yet, I've got dozens of copies of it on this computer already!! HAH!

Yeah, it's not the player. BigThing's tracks don't do that on his website. I think our downloads are that way too, because yammoma tried to get them all at the same level. If people are downloading the tracks like this, that ain't good, man. It will make us look bad.

It's not the player, that's why i brought it up in the first place. The encoding in the player is at 32kbs/stereo which degrades sound quality to some extent but does not introduce pops etc.

The mp3 tracks also have these pops & clicks (some more than others) but you generally don't notice them as much as the streaming files (the encoder just 'magnifies' these problems)

there is only one way to solve this matter and that is NO normalizing or leveling of the orginal mp3 files of any kind. If that means that some tracks are louder than others than have the problem tracks mastered by the musicians themselves. (they have the original .wav files. Normalizing an mp3 is a big no-no).

Also never normalize above -.5 dB (and the ears should always be the final judge)

Hope this helps!

BigThing said:

You tell 'em, BigThing!!!

On Cakewalk, I don't know what I'm normalizing at. I just click on Normalize. I always test the file by playing it, then playing a wave file that I burned from cd, to see how close it is. If I have to turn down the cd, then I know my song isn't loud enough.

VinaBlue said:

There you go! That's how you do it. be sure you're comparing apples to apples - don't compare your dance track to a neil young acoustic number...

otan said:

Yeah, you know I'm ALWAYS rockin' out to Neil Young...

Keep On Rockin' the Free World





NOT!

Don't confuse 'normalizing' with 'compression and limiting' . The last method is the way to go if you want to increase the apparant loudness of your track.

Normalizing without use of compression isn't helping your track much in that area, in fact it usually does more damage than good.

BigThing said:

Ok, now I'm thoroughly confused. Gotta go back to recording school.

Does yamomma need fresh copies of the tracks??