Normalize.....

Why you should or shouldn't use it....? Use it to raise levels in a track with low levels. It's really handy to bring up a mic'd acoustic guitar track.

The down side is that when you normalize the track, the process of normalization brings everything up to a predetermined level. Say you choose -3db as the level. Normalize will look at the entire track, find the highest peak in the wave and bring THAT point to -3db. It amplifies everything else in that wave on a linear scale as well so that the music retains the exact same dynamic range but just louder with the highest peak not exceeding -3db. What that means is any noise in the track also gets that same boost. That's the downside and the why not.

-3db and -6db are not magical numbers someone picked out of the air. The common number is -6db as peaks and -12 as RMS levels on a mix for a wave that has NOT been mastered yet. This allows the mastering house engineer to work with sufficient headroom to add compression and limiting without exceeding the 0db level which in the digital world is clipping. Adhering to those levels also allows for the conversion to MP3 without the clipping as well.

Most of the -6 db thing is applicable if you are having the track mastered by a pro mastering house. If you do your own, the -3db level is a good rule of thumb to use on the final mix.

As for me, my rule of thumb is to keep the meters out of the red (clipping) and mix by that measure and what it sounds like. It's totally possible to have an acoustic guitar based tune quite loud (in relative db's in the wave) and still retain the dynamic range of the music when it's done right.

I do also tend to use normalize in a track only when the levels are low. BB will render some low level tracks at times and I'll bump them with normalize. I always use normalize in the mastering/polishing process after I have exported the finished mix.... it gets trimmed and normalized in my audio editor generally to that -3db level.

You can find my music at:
www.herbhartley.com
Add nothing that adds nothing to the music.
You can make excuses or you can make progress but not both.

The magic you are looking for is in the work you are avoiding.