Common. Sense.

There is no tool at our disposal that we should label as a "never use" tool.

What we must do is learn to discern when a certain tool, such as Normalization algo, is called for in a certain situation or not.

For the neophyte especially, having the Normalization button in there would indeed represent an easy way for them to get closer to the kind of results they desire. After all, I'm fairly certain that the routine got added to the BiaB arsenal in direct response to the many posts concerning the subject -- "why is my mp3 file not as loud as everybody else's?" -- and the like.

Normalization is now included with just about every mp3 maker and CD burner out anymore, and that is due to customer inputs of the very finest kind -- people preferred to spend their money on the one that had the Normalization feature.

Now, you can spend your lifetime telling the majority of folks that what they are doing is wrong and why, or you can just accept it.

If you don't like it, you do not have to do it.

I'm here to tell you that it is done in production facilities quite a lot anymore. very Audio Editing Suite software has some kind of Normalization algo in it, some more than one. They get used.

This whole Internet Forum "Normalization Bashing" thing started on the Cakewalk forum years ago and IMO is a direct result of a poorly implemented Normalization routine that was in certain earlyier versions of Cakewalk (Cakewalk 9 era or so) and even though Twelvetone Systems soon released a better bit of coding, the seeds were planted firmly.

The cold hard facts are that many people will be able to benefit from having the Normalization button available.

If you don't like it, simply don't use it. Use another method. There aren't any rules here AFAIC. And I'll bet the Rent Money that those arguing against Normalization would not be able to pass a true double blindfold test on the subject such as, "Which of the following soundfiles were Normalized and which weren't?" by simply listening to them and evaluating same. There are too many other contributing factors to consider. For example, I could make a recording in which I've pushed the Gain Staging going in and it would sound much the same as a Normalized file, but there would have been no Normalization routine applied to it. There are other examples I could cite.

Me, I take it light. Grain of salt and all that, this one ain't the end-of-the-world-as-we-know-it™ either. *grin*


--Mac

PGmusic FAQs, Tutorials and Updates! click here

You must be Audiominds.
www.audiominds.com