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Audio normalization and gain

When dealing with multiple audio streams for video content, regardless if all are captured simultaneously, the mics and streams are seldom identicle.  This creates a need for “normalizing”.  Normalizing averages the highest highs and lowest lows from all sources and wipes them out attempting to create a standardized volume and noise level (this is a “gist of it” sort of explanation. This post will get long even without a technically accurate half dozen paragraphs on the topic of normalization).  In 99.99% of all circumstances, normalizing lowers gain.

Therefore, audio gain should get some attention while editing content.  In the case of video content, Adobe Premier, Cyberlink Power Director, and in fact all popular visual interface editors make it 1) easy and 2) obvious.  You’ll find a white line running down the center of each audio track.  You can place dots on that line and move the gain around effectively increasing or decreasing volume between the dots. Commonly, editors notice this when they want to fade in or fade out the audio in a scene.  

There are dozens of other ways to manipulate audio gain in all popular visual editors, but the above is as visual and as simple as it gets.  Grab the dot at the beginning of the track and lift it 10-20%.  Grab the dot at the end of the track and lift it the same amount as the first one.

Failing to adjust gain after normalization creates less than crisp sound and introduces problems for many would-be listeners/viewers… particularly those with single speaker output (the majority of cell phones and tablets, for instance) and those who do not have finite control of amplified volume systems.  While the content might sound fine in headphones cranked up to 75-90% volume or might even be spectacular through amplified speakers attached to a PC, it might be very quiet coming from something like a bluetooth speaker tied to a phone volume control or from the phone speaker itself.

For the last ~3 months or so, it seems to me that the video editing guy or gal at billwhittle has neglected gain adjustment after normalization. I’ve tested a variety of devices and I think this conclusion is accurate.

 

My best example is that I can hear Stratosphere Lounge just fine with my OnePlus 6 with or without my Anker bluetooth speaker engaged and with background noise in my environment like a fan on or a faucet running nearby.  It has been at least several weeks since I could clearly hear right angle or bill whittle now under the same circumstances.  — I went back to a random episode from about 4 months ago and it was acceptable. The billwhittlenow episode I tried to listen to today entitled “Why Trump Told ‘The Squad’ of 4 U.S. Lawmakers…” is impossible to hear in the exact same environment with the exact same equipment.

 

I can’t always (or even usually) use headphones and if the only other way I can watch billwhittle content is to go to a PC with headphones or amplified speakers, I’m going to miss 100% of the content.

 

So, that’s the price of rice.

 

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