Hi all,
Do you have some recommendations for adding new music to the database? I’m in the process of switching to mAirlist and am having some trouble with cue points and normalization.
Do you guys manage this from the database tool by bulk editing? I’ve set Normalization to EBU R128.
Should I now run ‘Loudness’ and/or ‘Normalize’?
Any help is appreciated!
You can activate Normalization, Loudness and Cue-Points by default when importing new files in the Configuration at “File Import”.
EBU 128 with a Loudness of -23dB worked fine for me on around 4000 files for now.
With my Auto-Cue settings I get a smooth transition, not too early and not too late. But that’s personal preference. Only cold vocal endings usually needs edits (I’m using the “Start Next” marker for them instead of the fade out so the reverb of the vocal will not fade out).
Hello Stefan,
Thank you for the detailled reply! I’ll try those values as a starting point and will activate Normalization at File Import.
Most tracks are already in my db though. Would you happen to know the difference between ‘Loudness’ and ‘Normalization’ in the mass edit tool? I guess ‘Loudness’ is an older/deprecated tool and ‘Normalization’ would be sufficient?
Thanks,
Maarten
Hi Maarten, in my understanding “Loudness” in the batch editor just analyzes the Loudness of the audio file to have a reference for the normalization.
Batch-Normalize then tells mAirlist to decrease/increase the playout level by the given parameters in the configuration.
Maybe @UliNobbe can confirm that or has another explanation?
That’s true, with a small correction:
If you choose “Normalize” and there hasn’t been a loudness calculation before, this will be done automatically in one step.
If you import one or two CDs to your database at once, this is okay.
I would not recommend it while importing all elements of a big database for the first time or to change an existing database.
The calculation of the loudness of each element may need 3 to 7 seconds, depending on the length of the element. If you have a database with 30k+ elements, this won’t be done in one night…
Normalization is a simple calculation: This is the difference between the (uniquely calculated) loudness value of the element and the desired loudness for playout.
This is done very fast. Especially if you change the desired playout value (EBU R 128 s2 by example), you simply start a new normalization. The loudness of all elements remains unchanged.
So my proposal is: import all tracks without normalization or loudness calculation. Start calculating loudness in blocks later and see how long it takes.
When all elements have a calculated loudness, normalize them all at once. Then change the import settings like @Stefan_Hillen described it.
Your advantage: You can do it step by step, especially when an automation is running. You don’t want to have normalized and “original loud” elements mixed up in your playout.
Depending on your pc
I bought last year a new pc.
This weekend i made a a new (seccond database) whit normalization.
Evry number took about 2 seconds but if you have a old pc it takes much longer. I imported about 20.000 files in a afternoon.
Hi all,
Thank you very much for the detailed answers. This explains everything!
