I don't find Normalizing very useful. If you're trying to make files generally louder, Normalizing can be helpful. But if you're trying to match levels of audio files, there is no good shortcut; use your ears.

there no point to normalize. If you mix right you dont need to.. The point of normalizing is to get the loudest peak to the loudest point possible. That should be covered during the mixing/mastering process.Yyou should be decreasing gain for the most part during a mix, if you can normalize a track after you have mixed you did something wrong. Level adjustment should be set by your volume faders & Compressors.

Normalizing is a tool to fix bad mixes or creating samples.

Je'si ...

If you set your levels correctly before you start recording (analog), you shouldn't have to normalize. That being said, things happen, and sometimes you need to. I wouldn't adopt an "always normalize" viewpoint as my own, any more than I would adopt a "never normalize" one. The good thing about it is that it can make a track louder (without the artifacts of compression), but the bad thing is that the _whole_ track is louder e.g. if your noise floor wasn't so great (not low enough), but you didn't hear it before, you might hear it now, and sometimes it can affect a mix in such a way as to make it hard to tell what the problem is -- all that you know is that it sounded better before. Also, like others have said, if you normalize all of your tracks, you lose any reference they had to other tracks from a volume perspective. Add to this that normalization is a destructive effect, while simple volume changes are not. If your audio app doesn't have a very good undo feature, normalization is often a one-way street.

So, I would think of it as a tool that is good to have, but hopefully one that you won't use very often.

Regards,

John

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