what is the ideal sound level for exporting music?

pardon me, I am sure this question has been asked before but I can’t find it in the archives, and google did not bring the answer as well.

What sound level should I use to output consistent MP3 quality? When recording, I try to stay within -12 to -6 db, but when making a compilation “disk” I like to tweak every song a bit with the normalize effect, and I am not sure if I am doing this right.

Which settings or method do you use, so that the levels of all songs are quite similar and compatible with commercial CD recordings?

MacOS 10.14.6 Audacity 3.0.2

It depends what the audio is for.
In most cases, normalizing (or amplifying) to just under 0 dB (say “-1 dB”) is appropriate, but for some purposes (such as audiobooks) there are special requirements. In the case of audiobooks, publishers often specify that the peak level must be below -3 dB, and also specify a range for the RMS level.


Commercial CDs often use dynamic compression and limiting to make the audio artificially loud (See: “Loudness war”), though this seems to be falling out of fashion for many genres of music.

I try to stay within -12 to -6 db, but when making a compilation “disk” I like to tweak every song a bit with the normalize effect, and I am not sure if I am doing this right.

All good!!!

tweak every song

… If you are making an album, the songs may not sound equally loud after normalizing, but normalizing is a good start. In fact if you want to match the volumes without any “excessive processing”, the best approach is to normalize (AKA “maximize”) all of songs first, and then adjust-down the louder songs (by ear) if necessary. Or, sometimes you want some quiet songs and some loud songs on an album.

During recording your digital levels are not critical as long as you don’t “try” to go over 0dB and [u]clip[/u] (distort). Nothing bad happens if you get close to 0dB but the idea is to use plenty of headroom (safety margin) for unexpected peaks. It depends on what you’re recording and how predictable the levels are.

I usually normalize to 0dB. Some people worry about “inter-sample” overs so they normalize to -1dB or so. That’s where the reconstructed analog level goes over 0dB. But I’m not convinced DACs can’t go over 0dB on the analog-side so there probably isn’t any clipping. And if the analog side does clip I’ve never heard of a case where that slight clipping was audible.

Or if you are making an MP3, the (lossy) MP3 compression changes the wave shape making some peaks higher and some lower. If you have a 0dB normalized file and you make an MP3, the MP3 often goes over 0dB. This especially true if the peaks are “artificially” limited. MP3 can go over 0dB so the MP3 isn’t actually clipped but your DAC will clip if you play it at “full digital volume”. That’s another reason some people normalize to around -1dB.

Again, this is not something I personally worry about… I don’t think that slight clipping has ever been shown to be audible… If you’re hearing an MP3 compression artifact it’s usually something else and lowering the level is unlikely to help. And MP3 is lossy so it’s never going to be perfect anyway (although it can often sound identical to the uncompressed original). …I have lots of MP3s ripped from CDs that go over 0dB and “show red” in Audacity.

On the other hand if you want to be perfectly “safe”, a 1dB difference is hardly noticeable and normalizing to -1dB is very-slightly lower and if you listen to the 0dB-normalized file on Monday and the -1dB-nomalized file on Tuesday you’d NEVER know the difference.

Which settings or method do you use, so that the levels of all songs are quite similar and compatible with commercial CD recordings?

Here’s where things get tricky… Virtually ALL commercial has SOME compression (or limiting which is a kind of fast dynamic compression) and this makes it “louder”. In general, dynamic compression makes the loud parts quieter or the quiet parts louder. In practice, it’s normally used to push-down the loud parts, then make-up gain is used to make everything louder. That ends-up making a higher overall-average level and it boosts the perceived loudness. IMO - Sometimes modern music is over-compressed to the point where the constant-loudness is boring and that’s how you “win” the loudness war! :wink:

Normalization doesn’t affect sound quality at all so that’s the 1st step. If that doesn’t make it loud enough for you, you can try some compression or limiting. (I’d start with limiting because there are fewer settings and you are less likely to get side-effects.) But, you probably can’t get the same loudness (with as little “damage”) as the professional mastering engineers.

Thanks Steve and DVDoug, this really is helpful! learned a lot today. so my intuition was good (a bit) but now I know some good foundation and feel more confident. tnx again!
wim