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M
MrPaullight19635CB6
Known Participant
August 24, 2025
Question

Using normalisation

  • August 24, 2025
  • 2 replies
  • 277 views

I have been ripping songs from CDs and transferring them into Audition and also burning CDRs via Audition. I started normalising these songs to -3db via the 'Favourites' function. I soon noticed that the loudest part of a song (maybe a loud snare drum beat) would be identified and used as the reference point. The problem with that is apart from snare drum the remainder of the song could be considerably quieter than that which also gave overall inconsistency across all the other songs on the CDR. I had a quick browse on You Tube regarding normalisation and one website recommended 'perceived loudness' for  more consistent sound across several songs. I tried this and I'm happy all the songs sound relatively the same volumewise.

What I would like to know is should I retain the -3db setting  or move onto a LUFs setting. Even though the setting is at -3db it looks more like 0 when you view the wave forms.

 

Any help putting me on the right track would be appreciated, thanks in advance.

 

2 replies

Rag and Bone
Community Expert
Rag and BoneCommunity Expert
Community Expert
August 25, 2025

That doesn't look good. Try using the "ITU-R BS.1770-3" option in  Match Loudness, and set a max true peak level of -1.

 

The target level you set is a a trade off: higher values give more loudness at the expense of dynamics.  As a starting point, Spotify use -14. 

M
MrPaullight19635CB6Author
Known Participant
August 25, 2025

Thanks for your reply Rag and Bone,

 

I did spot in another Adobe Community message to use -17 which as you say the higher the number the less the dynamics, although, would I be losing any dynamics at -17?

 

My main aim is to get the volumes of several songs in a compilation to sound as close to each other as possible.

Rag and Bone
Community Expert
Rag and BoneCommunity Expert
Community Expert
August 25, 2025

Well, all these numbers are negative, so -17 is less aggressive that -14.  Netflix, for example,  specs -27, with true peak of -2db, which preserves lots of dynamics

M
MrPaullight19635CB6Author
Known Participant
August 24, 2025

Here is a screen shot showing the result of the -3db (perceived loudness). Is it acceptable?

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