Should Everything You Release Be Normalized to Peatk At 0db?

[Christopher11]

Even film score or more ambient type stuff?  Sometimes I'll finish a mix and it's peak RMS level is like -3. dB.  Would you always boost that so it peaks around 0 or -.1?    If not, tell me about why not.  Thanks so much.

Edited February 6 by Christopher11

[fuzzfilth]

I don't think *anything* should be normalized to 0dB.

A couple of things:

To normalize to 0dB peak would be a very bad mastering job. All this does is change the level of the entire file so its highest peak hits 0dBFs. This may result in a very quiet master, with the entire piece waaaay below normal volume except that one spot where it hits 0dB. Or in an obnoxiously loud master because you may have squashed all the peaks during the mix already, and then normalized the result to 0dB.

Then, "peak RMS" is not a unit. It's two different measurement scales with different rules, measuring different things, and you read different things from them.

Then, there's little point in mastering film score music to any specific level, because its level will be changed, sometimes drastically, as it's being mixed with dialogue, foley and SFX.

Also, boosting all and everything to -0.0000001 is not a desirable goal anymore. Google "Loudness War" for a good overview.

In short, if you master your stuff to -14 LUFs in the current loudness standard of EBU R-128, you can now focus on an actually "great" sounding master, as opposed to "loud". You can use Logic's Loudness meter for that. Cross check with a True Peak Meter and react accordingly if any overs occur.

Edited February 7 by fuzzfilth

[Christopher11]

I should have clarified.  This was after I mastered: EQ, multi-band compression, exciter, and limiter.  So it has some fairly good mastering and healthy peak to average signal ratio... it was just that because it's a more ambient, film score type piece, it was peaking way below 0 dB, in fact the highest peak was around -4 dB.  So, it seemed to me, raising it to close to 0 does nothing to affect dynamic range, in no way compresses, just makes the average signal level louder.  I wondered if people always brought it up close to 0 before releasing, even in the case of more atmospheric music.