Volume Normalization / Adjustment

Audio Surgeon has the ability to calculate the volume or loudness of an audio file or song. Beyond this basic calculation, AS has the ability to modify or change this volume, either up or down. When you adjust the volume of a group of audio files to have the same value, that is called volume normalization. The accuracy by which this is done is an important consideration.

Below is a small study comparing a product called MP3 Gain to Audio Surgeon. In this study a small group of 80 songs were chosen at random from a music library and ran on both products to normalize the volume to 95.0 dB. MP3 gain wins when looking only at processing time. For a group of 80 songs MP3 gain took about 1.5 minutes to normalize over 80 tracks, Audio Surgeon took 11 minutes. However, where AS excels, is in achieving a close proximity to the target volume. As the table below shows, in AS’s case, 88% of the track levels were within 0.2 dB of the target. MP3Gain, on the other hand, only landed 33% of the results within 0.2 dB. AS allowed very few tracks (8) to exceed the target, and this by only 0.1 dB. MP3Gain allowed 44% of all tracks to exceed the target level.