[LAU] Batch normalising wav files

[fons at kokkinizita.net]

On Fri, Dec 24, 2010 at 06:51:18PM +0100, Jörn Nettingsmeier wrote:

> On 12/24/2010 06:07 PM, Q wrote:

> > Out of interest, how high can intersample peaks get above the highest
> > peaks in a file?
> 
> imagine the positive half of a sine wave, so that two consecutive
> samples representing the very top of the wave are at 0dBFS. it is clear
> that between those samples, the real peak value of the sound must be
> higher than 0dBFS, and the reconstruction filter will see this higher
> value. that means unless your analog stage has headroom for this, it
> will clip. the higher the frequency, the higher above full scale those
> inter-sample peaks can be.

In theory it could be any value. In practice it's limited by the lenght
of the antialiasing filter. You get the maximum output for a series of
samples at max amplitude (+ or - 1) and matching the sign of the IR of
the filter at half a sample delay.

For example, if '+' means a sample of +1, and '-' a -1, then the
sequence of 20 samples:

 -+-+-+-+-++-+-+-+-+-  

will produce of peak of more than 8 dB above FS.

It's very unlikely to get such a sequence with natural sounds,
but quite possible with synthetic signals or when using agressive
mastering techniques.

Ciao,

-- 
FA

There are three of them, and Alleline.