Subject: Re: [linux-audio-dev] normalize: destructive or non-destructive ?
From: Niklas Werner (n.werner_AT_webcrew.de)
Date: Fri Nov 03 2000 - 19:40:03 EET
Hi All!
[...]
> it therefore seems to me that
> this operation should always be done destructively. if i do this to
> the recordings i'm working with even as test cases, we are talking
> about copying 1.2GB of data just for this operation. in the real
> world, we'd have, say, a 40 minute session occupying 12-18GB and would
> be required to copy all this data just to normalize. Insane.
You're right about the copying, but you definitely should make the
normalising undoable!
I remember using wavelab or cooledit under windoze with large files
(~700-1200MB) and normalising the files with undo switched off because of
the poor disk capacities I had: Of course there was an error somewhere!
Sometimes there was clipping, sometimes it simply seemed to have gotten
caught in some stupid loop and written the same 500 samples all over the
remaining 30 minutes or so, akkh!!
I don't know whether this was windoses fault or steinbergs. But
nevertheless I would have loved an undo-function.
The same applies for classical stuff I had to master:
for quiet pieces you don't really want the full 0 dB-level, but have to
try some normalize-values like -3 or even -5 to -9 (yes, I had to use -9
on a string quartet), because it simply is to loud otherwise.
So undoing the normalizing seems quite important to me.
>
> If necessary, it can be undone by knowing the scale factor used to
> normalize, and rescaling with its reciprocal,
quite right, can't be too much of an effort to save the factor...
I know it'll take the same time undoing the normalizing as doing it in
the first place, but who cares with todays computing power...?
but i would not plan on
> automating that (it doesn't fit into the undo/redo/apply model i have).
hmm, maybe you extend that model a bit for normalizing?
Have fun
Niklas
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