Normalize not working - just sets gain to -Inf

[BLG]

I got drum tracks from our drummer and the clip's volumes are very low so I want to normalize them up to -10dB. But when I open AudioSuite->Normalize whatever I choose just lowers the gain. I've tried setting it at -10dB, -INFdB and 0dB and all seem to do the same thing. Just doing the kick track right now and in all 3 cases after normalizing the waveform is flat (and inaudibly low). What am I doing wrong? (Picture attached)

[Sonopolis]

So you're saying it's not only the waveform but you also can't hear anything after the normalization? If it was just the waveform you could try to choose Rebuilt wave form overviews from the clip list menu.

One thing that comes to my mind is that muted clips become silent after any Audiosuite render.

[BLG]

Correct - there is no sound. It drops to silence when it hits the normalized part.

[Sonopolis]

You should give some system info...

[BLG]

PT version 2022.12 - Windows 11 - 32GB Ram - i9 Processor. Focusrite Clarette pre2+ (not that that matters). I think that's everything.

[Tweakhead]

why not just boost the level with Clip Gain instead of Audiosuite processing ?

[BLG]

Because it would have been so much easier to select a bunch of tracks and normalize them all to -10dB than to adjust the clip gain for each one, having to listen to each clip to get it right. That's assuming that's the way that normalize works the way it did in the video I watched (different DAW).

[JFreak]

Why would you want to normalize? That is a thing from the past 16bit era when we only had 96dB theoretical dynamics available

[BLG]

Janne - I just watched a 5 hour video from Mastering.com that went through their process for mixing and the first step was to normalize the tracks. They weren't using Pro Tools, but that said I don't think this was recorded very long ago. So maybe normalizing just doesn't apply to Pro Tools anymore but it does in other DAWs?



It makes sense to me though that before starting to mix you would want all of your tracks at approximately the same level. Like you're 1/4 way through your mix and the you realize the kick just isn't loud enough even though you've tweaked it 10 times already. So then you need to adjust the clip gain so your fader isn't maxed out. (Like I said at the start of this I wanted to uniformly increase the levels of all of my drums which were delivered at a low volume).

[The Weed]

First thing I would do is use the Gain AudioSuite plug-in to find out the actual peaks in the files. Then use the Gain AudioSuite plug-in to bring those peaks to your desired -10 db. I do this all the time with vocals.