I get it. As I said i was just experimenting after reading about this technique. The experiment worked. I learned that i probably will hardly ever use this tool again, and definitely not for gain staging. As I said in post #7, I will continue to use the tried and true method of using the gain knob or a trim plugin in the first insert slot as my gain staging tool for the start of a mix. I appreciate all the support and responses.
 
Mike

mcstringer413
I get it. As I said i was just experimenting after reading about this technique. The experiment worked. I learned that i probably will hardly ever use this tool again, and definitely not for gain staging. As I said in post #7, I will continue to use the tried and true method of using the gain knob or a trim plugin in the first insert slot as my gain staging tool for the start of a mix. I appreciate all the support and responses.
 
Mike

Mike, what I do is use the Gain knob (like you do)
but to take it a step further, sometimes I even automate the gain, because if you try to compress levels that are all over the place, the lower levels might seem okay, but when a loud level hits the compressor..it slams the snot out of it, over compressing the signal.
if you have a level that is pretty tame across the board, you don't have to worry about this much.
but on something like vocals where the dynamics are up and down, this is where gain automation comes in true.
like this video made by Craig Anderton:
[tube]http://youtu.be/DqyKdhH_M98 [/tube]
 
this takes care of the gain staging aspect of things.
now if you really want to get bipolar about it (such as what I do) you take it a step further and also automate levels. Volume automation differs in Gain Automation as volume automation comes after the FX.
I use this for perceived loudness vs what my meter is telling me.
 
anyway, hope this helped. happy sonaring

mcstringer413
I get it. As I said i was just experimenting after reading about this technique. The experiment worked. I learned that i probably will hardly ever use this tool again, and definitely not for gain staging. As I said in post #7, I will continue to use the tried and true method of using the gain knob or a trim plugin in the first insert slot as my gain staging tool for the start of a mix. I appreciate all the support and responses.
 
Mike

Mike, what I do is use the Gain knob (like you do)
but to take it a step further, sometimes I even automate the gain, because if you try to compress levels that are all over the place, the lower levels might seem okay, but when a loud level hits the compressor..it slams the snot out of it, over compressing the signal.
if you have a level that is pretty tame across the board, you don't have to worry about this much.
but on something like vocals where the dynamics are up and down, this is where gain automation comes in true.
like this video made by Craig Anderton:

 
this takes care of the gain staging aspect of things.
now if you really want to get bipolar about it (such as what I do) you take it a step further and also automate Volume levels. Volume automation differs in Gain Automation as volume automation comes after the FX.
I use this for perceived loudness vs what my meter is telling me. and paying caution to the wind making sure im not going in to the red.
 
anyway, hope this helped. happy sonaring

chuckebaby
 
on something like vocals where the dynamics are up and down, this is where gain automation comes in true.
like this video made by Craig Anderton:

 
 

Thanks, Chuck, that is a good workflow. Yeah I recently started using clip gain on the vocals before I added any other processing. I watched several videos of Pro Tools users doing this. Of course, in Pro Tools you visually see the size of the waveform change as they add the clip gain automation. (I wouldn't mind having this feature in Sonar). But it is rather easy to use clip gain in Sonar. And I also do a little volume automation at the end of a mix if needed.
 
Not really related, but I recently was able to mix a song from David Glenn for little $ as a sample of what his Mix Academy is all about. i have to say, he is an automation animal. His mixing process seems so complex to me that I really felt like a beginner after watching him mix the song. Even his rough static mix had automation. The end result was good, but I question whether all that automation and gazillions of plugins were necessary. Don't get me wrong, he is very talented and skilled at mixing.
 
Anyway, thanks so much for offering your help and knowledge.
 
Mike

brundlefly
SONAR offers so many options for managing gain non-destructively, I can't imagine why anyone would want to destructively normalize files as a matter of course - with the the possible exception of building sample libraries,which I suspect is Craig's use case.

 
That certainly is my "indispensable"  use case. However, I also normalize destructively sometimes as a matter of personal preference. For example, I'll work on phrasing with vocals and adjust levels either through normalization or gain changes. I rarely normalize to 100%, usually it's some lesser amount. I also normalize tracks sometimes when working with specific presets on dynamics processors so the input level is consistent.
 
Part of this is probably a reflexive habit from being raised with tape, where "audio is audio." I like having a WAV file that inherently incorporates changes, and thus simplifies the amount of real-time processing that needs to be done.
 

I've been using Normalize , mostly in Wave Lab for 15 years, to me it's like, make up your mind johnny,  this is what this should be and print it. As far as destructive goes, you always have a back up if something does go wrong. But after normalizing thousands of audio tracks I've never had to go back. It's possibly the best tool ever invented for how I like to work. I do a lot of live recordings. Choirs etc.
 
I don't like to use Sonar's Normalize function as it is pretty basic. In a wave editor it will tell you what you peak is first so you can make intelligent decisions. You choose "find peak level" and it will report back. Sonar doesn't have this option as of yet, but I'm still optimistic that they will eventually add this as a feature.
 
I might use the Gain function on parts of vocal tracks where the singer got off mike as apposed to running a volume envelope, both do the same thing for me. It's more of a visual piece of work. I'll examine the wave form and look for low spots and bring them up to match the adjoining parts. Once again this is much more accurately done in a Wave editor. So I will often open the track in the Wave editor to fix an uneven audio track.  The end result is a nice even track that needs no compression or volume automation. Just my way of working, that's all. We certainly have dozens of ways we can get the same job done, all are correct, all get to the same place. And Normalizing is a good tool,,, just not very well presented in Sonar.

Cactus Music
 In a wave editor it will tell you what you peak is first so you can make intelligent decisions. You choose "find peak level" and it will report back. Sonar doesn't have this option as of yet, but I'm still optimistic that they will eventually add this as a feature.

 
I'm sure you know the following, but I mention it for others who don't. After SONAR has played through a track, you can right-click on the Peak indicator and choose "Go to Peak" to locate the peak value. This is handy if you want to match a clip's peak to this value.

this is interesting... I've almost never normalized anything...  I've also never touched the gain knob or used gain automation.  I'll use volume automation, and if that isn't enough, I'll destructively boost the gain +6db on that portion of the clip.  I've always thought that you should USUALLY 1. avoid destructive processing and 2. use volume automation to balance the track volume?

Gain may be needed to get sufficient level going into FX, otherwise, Volume (and Volume offset) will usually suffice.

I think there's an unwarranted fear of the term destructive editing.. it does sound threatening  doesn't it! 
But it's like this. Some stuff we record is not gold, and fixing an audio track is par for the course as we work on projects that are not headed for the hall of fame. So making a decision to apply normalizing to most material is not going to destroy it! In 99.9% of the instances it's going to improve it. We have back ups and undo to fall back on anyways. 
If I am working on a critical one of a kind track I most certainly will have a bunch of back up copies of that piece. I will also be backing up as I go. So if the .1% happens i's no big deal to go back and try something else. But after 100000000 of destructive processes I've yet to have to do this.