Andreas wrote:Ears.
Try Normalize.
krabapple wrote:IMO the best is to use a method based on psychoacoustic models of level perception -- e.g. replaygain
krabapple wrote:Normalize only matches peak levels. The average level -- which has far more influence on what we perceive as the 'loudness' -- can still be quite different when peaks are the same.
4. Why don't you normalize using peak levels instead of RMS amplitude?
Well, in early (unreleased) versions, this is how it worked. I found that this just didn't work well. The volume that your ear hears corresponds more closely with average RMS amplitude level than with peak level. Therefore, making the RMS amplitude of two files equal makes their perceived volume equal. (Approximately equal, anyway: certain frequencies sound louder at the same amplitude because the ear is just more sensitive to those frequencies. I may try to take this into account in a future version, but that opens up a whole new can of worms.)
"Normalizing" by peak level generally makes files with small dynamic range very loud and does nothing to files with large dynamic ranges. There's not really any normalization being done, it's more of a histogram expansion. That said, since version 0.5, you can use the --peak option to do this in normalize if you're sure it's what you really want to do.
damianm wrote:krabapple wrote:Normalize only matches peak levels. The average level -- which has far more influence on what we perceive as the 'loudness' -- can still be quite different when peaks are the same.
Actually Krab, the particular program I linked to above does RMS normalization, as opposed to peak.
(Approximately equal, anyway: certain frequencies sound louder at the same amplitude because the ear is just more sensitive to those frequencies. I may try to take this into account in a future version, but that opens up a whole new can of worms.)
Andreas wrote:Hound Dog: Budd - Hoffman - Drake
MK wrote:With "Hound Dog," it's Hoffman's. Like I said before, it's much more natural sounding. Say what you will about Hoffman, but his mastering still gives us some FINE sounding shit.