[LAU] Normalizing Audio Levels using RMS

[hollunder at gmx.at]

On Wed, 15 Apr 2009 10:37:29 +0200
Raffaele <raffaele.morelli at gmail.com> wrote:

> 2009/4/14 Viktor Mastoridis <viktor at mastoridis.co.uk>
> 
> >
> > Hi Linux Audio Geeks
> >
> > In my musical prehistory, while I was on Windows, I used to use a
> > program called SoundForge that had one very useful feature:
> > normalizing audio levels with RMS, even using the Equal Loudness
> > Contour
> >
> > For a whole year I am struggling now to find something similar on
> > Linux, without much success.
> >
> > Any help/hints will be much appreciated.
> >
> > Viktor
> >
> 
> Hi,
> 
> if the the goal is to have a sound file play as loud as possible I
> would use Jamin, so you can take care about frequencies, if needed.
> 
> If you are going to normalize a telephone conversation maybe you
> don't need such accuracy.
> 
> regards
> -r

I don't really see how RMS can be that useful, at least not when you
try to get stuff as loud as possible. You still have to watch for peaks
because of clipping.

If your goal is to have songs or albums at the same loudness for
playback use replaygain. It's probably not perfect but the best thing I
know of. I think it uses something like RMS and something to adjust it
to the human hearing, but it also has an option to not clip the signal.

for more information check http://replaygain.org/ and
http://hydrogenaudio.org.

Best,
Philipp