Hi guys
I have a job that involves leveling several hundred .wav tracks for use in, YES! elevators, malls, and other scary places. They are all of various levels ranging from an RMS of -22 dB to -12dB. I need to level them all to ~ -14dB - and, ideally high-pass and brighten them.

I could, and will if necessary, do this by hand, one at a time, but if there was an app that could do this for me, it would save a heap of work. In other words, an intelligent bulk converter that will compress and limit to a pre-determined RMS.

Ultimately, these files will end up as 128 kbs MP3's, but I need to deliver as .wav files. So quality is not my primary concern.
Any thoughts, most welcome

Cheers, David

Wavelab...has a batch processor.

Regards,
Dan

I think you are going to have to do it one by one. How is any automatic system going to know if one rms level is too low and another too high. That is what you are being paid for so get to it!

You will need a decent VU meter set-up (plugins are OK) and calibrated to show the rms at 0dB VU when the rms level is down at -14 dB rms. Otherwise you wont be able to do it properly as well. Do not rely on Sonar rms metering only and remember Sonar meters will show the signal to be -17 dB rms when the signal is at -14 dB rms as well. Something to be aware of.

Hi Jeff and Dan I'm fairly experienced at production CD mastering and have the required tools/ metering etc. Under normal circumstances I'd never consider such a heavy-handed approach, but this is huge bulk for very low-grade usage. I believe that MP3 Gain can do this with MP3's using some sort of look-ahead system so I was hoping something similar existed that could handle .wav's.

Dan is correct about the Wavelab batch processor.  I haven't really used that function, but it sounds like it might fit your needs.  I can take a closer look tonight. 

Thanks, if you would. I have Sound Forge 10 with it's batch-converter. But be aware that it's intelligent compression to a standardised RMS I'm after - not normalisation.

OK.  I'll have a look. 

wavsaur... and it's free .. if you have some decent vst fx, you could use them with it IRC.

not sure about the high pass. but it'll deffo do the levels side


http://www.wavosaur.com/

I can't confirm it for the full version.  I have Wavelab Essential now and it will only convert mp3s with its batch converter.  I used to have an earlier version that was a full version and it seemed to be able to do more stuff with its batch converter.  Sorry.  

Since you already have Sound Forge, why not shoot their support an email asking if this is possible with their batch converter? My guess is it would take two batch passes. Off to experiment