[my-name-is-thanos]

Originally Posted by nednednerb

Two things about loudness:

1) Peak: the loudest moment in one song might be -3.0 dBFS, so what if you make every track normalized to -3.0 dBFS? What if there is one transient attack louder than rest in one recording? Then, -3.0 dBFS normalization means the main parts of your recording are lower than you expect.

versus

2) Persistence: normalizing to the average loudness, or 'dB RMS', or how loud things are over time, MIGHT be worth considering. However, what if the RMS of one recording is lower than you expect, but it has a high peak? When you normalize to RMS, and the RMS goes up, so will the dBFS peak, OVER 0.0 dBz!!! That means you'll get a red meter, digital clip, nasty distortion likely.

What does this mean?

You probably want to learn more about peak vs persistence and about "loudness" in general. There are some rather simple plug-ins which will "loudness normalize" but since you have the originals, which are probably getting mixed in PT (yes??), I would probably start by changing the input level into the compressor on your guitar tracks, and match by ear and loudness meter.

Also have to remember, even if your WAV files are all equal loudness, the rest of the song parts and the master bus might be changing the relative level of things.

nednednerb
so what are you saying?
I should use a plugin to go through every song and set it to the same setting to run it through the plugin to set it at that? I've heard things about a plugin called levelator or waverider. Is that what you mean?