I typically mix songs so that the peaks are maximum -6dBFS, and I don't normalize since mastering (specifically the master limiter) would effectively do that for me. At least some headroom is necessary to prevent clipping.

Originally Posted by Noel96
What normalising does is to increase every aspect of the sound by the same amount. When you normalise to 0 dB, the software scans the audio and looks for the loudest sound (this is the one with the highest peak.
You're talking about peak normalization, however there are some apps that can normalize to an average or RMS value. When doing this, it's possible that the volume level could be reduced to hit the target RMS, or could be increased to the point of clipping.

Originally Posted by babymusic
I personally feel that louder sounds inspire me more.
Loud music typically is perceived to sound "better". Part of the reason is because our ears don't respond linearly to sounds of all frequencies, and as the volume increases the ears become more sensitive to low and high frequencies and less sensitive to mids (the Fletcher-Munson curves) - and because music is often mixed at a higher volume level (typically around 80-86dB) that's where the mix usually sounds "best". Everything is subjective though.

Last edited by Simon - PG Music; 01/09/25 12:11 PM.
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