[Paul Stamler]

"jtougas" wrote in message
...

In my pursuit of improving my recordings, I've taken a few of my mixes
to a friend of mine, to see what he thinks, and I mentioned I'd
normalized one or two of the channels in the tracks since they were a
little quieter than the others.

He looked at me with a fairly shocked expression and said "Oh, man,
you should never normalize!"

I shrugged and said "Okay" (I was after, going to him for advice). But
I should have asked him why not.

So I'm asking y'all: why not?

Because it does nothing to improve the sound. All it does is make something
you haven't mixed down yet higher in level. So you'll set the fader lower
than you would if you hadn't normalized. So what?

The basic approach from the old days -- do as little as possible to your
signal -- still applies.

Peace,
Paul