Normalize All Peaks / Max Peaks not working as expected - Doing something wrong?

[Dominic Alex]

Hi all, 

I have had this on and off for a long time now and figure I should ask the question. I can't work out if this is something I am doing wrong, but I regularly find that audio in my projects does not respond as I believe it should do to normalizing audio gain. 

For example, I am currently working in a project and setting Normalise All Peaks on an individual audio clip to -6 - however, the audio meter when played back only hits -9. The waveform DOES change (it boosts quite significantly as the original audio in this instance was recorded quietly), but if I want it to hit -6 on the audio meter, I actually need to go to -3 on Normalise All Peaks. It's almost like everything is -3 behind what it should be - I can't explain it any other way. 

There are no other audio effects applied e.g. volume, track audio etc. As far as I can tell, everything is at default. 

I'm not the most technical when it comes to audio and have always fumbled my way through it a bit, so I could have picked up a bad habit or incorrect bit of knowledge which is causing this. 

What am I doing wrong?

[Richard van den Boogaard]

I'm not exactly sure how the Audio Mixer works in PPro, but in Audition, a mix is set to 3dB lower than the clip level, which is a measure taken to prevent clipping. It could be that a similar logic is used here.

Normalize will take the peak value of the entire clip and set that at the desired level.

If you want the overall value of the audio to have a volume at, say -6dB, it may be better to use a Compressor/Limiter. This will boost lower levels and cap higher levels.

You can apply that either on a clip level via the Effect Panel and then dragged onto a clip or on a track level via the Audio Track Mixer (twirl the little icon to add effects).

I prefer to use the Multiband Compressor and then use the Broadcast preset.

Hope this helps.

[ElPi ngas]

I'm currently trying to normalize all my VO clips' peaks to then pass the track through a compressor, and it boggles my mind how setting "Max Peak/All Peaks" to 0 dB sets it to -3dBTP according to the Loudness Meter.

It doesn't makes any sense, but hey, we are talking about adobe here. The most we can hope is for its decadent monopoly to fall within our lifespan.

[R Neil Haugen]

Is it possibly a stereo clip on a mono track, or vice versa? The thee dB drop sounds like the fabled "Pan Law" issue of summed stereo to mono.