Topic: Normalizing?

[airbladder]

Last night I recorded a show and one channel was slightly louder than the other.  I use a JB3 and this happens all the time.  When you normalize will it fix this?  Or will one channel still be louder than the other?  Today for the first time I normalized each channel separably, is that the best way to go?  Any help would be great.
Ed 

[pfife]

that's the way to go if they have different "peak" values.  IOW, if the loudest point in R is louder than the loudest point in L, then L will get a louder volume boost throughout.

What always f's me up is when there's one hit (like an applause) that throws the proportion off. 

Also, check RMS normalization.  It squashed dynamics, but it might work.  Finally, Leegeddy wrote something awesome in a thread once about normalization, and I am quite sure it was saved in teh archive.  I didn't understand normalization (and might still not...) until I read that.

[SparkE!]

I'd recommend using an analysis function to find out the rms signal level in each channel, then apply the correct amount of gain to each channel so that one channel just barely hits 0 dB and so that they both have the same rms signal level.  You can do that in two separate steps if you're working in 32 bit floating point.  In that case, you'd apply the correct amount of gain to the weaker channel so that both channels have the same rms signal level.  Then, you'd apply the same amount of gain to both channels so that one channel barely hits 0 dB.  In some programs, that would be called normalization.  In other programs (like Audacity), they call it amplification and there's a checkbox that you can set that says something like "prevent clipping".