Understanding How to Loudness Normalize Your Audio for Video

In a previous episode, we covered the difference between volume and loudness and introduced the loudness metrics LUFS and LKFS. In this video, we talk about how to loudness normalize the audio for you videos in conceptual terms with a practical example. For the example, we edit our video and mix the audio in DaVince Resolve and then loudness normalize the audio mix in Izotope RX. But the goal here is to show you the concept so that you can adapt loudness normalization into your workflow.

Please watch part 1 first where we cover loudness, LUFS, and LKFS.

If you’d like to learn how to make great dialogue audio for your film and video projects, please have a look at my courses including processing dialogue audio in Adobe Audition and DaVinci Resolve/Fairlight, recording sound, how to use the Zoom F4, F6, F8, and F8n, and how to get the most from the Sound Devices MixPre series of recorders. Our latest course is Sound for Live Streaming with the ATEM Mini.

Support my work creating videos by donating.

Gear used or mentioned in this episode. The links below are Amazon.com, B&H Photo, Sweetwater, DVEStore, or other affiliate links. As an affiliate, I earn from qualifying purchases:

- TZ Audio Stellar X3 large diaphragm condenser microphone - TZ Audio

- Sound Devices MixPre recorder/mixer/audio interface - B&H, Sweetwater, DVEStore, Amazon

- Panasonic GH5 - B&H, Amazon

- Panasonic 12-35mm f/2.8 OIS Lens - B&H, Amazon

The intro and outro music for this episode is from Musicbed - “For the Kids” by Utah. Get the best music for your videos at Musicbed: http://share.mscbd.fm/curtisjudd

Copyright 2021, Curtis Judd

Audio Normalization: Make Your Video Consistently Loud

What is audio normalization? What does it actually do to your sound clip or file? In this episode we cover the two main ways to normalize your audio and why you should use loudness normalization rather than peak normalization to get consistently loud videos.

Links to gear some of my favorite gear:

Zoom F8n - The audio for this episode was recorded with the F8n

Panasonic GH5s Camera - my favorite small camera for video

Panasonic 12-35mm f/2.8 OIS Lens - this is the the lens I use more than any other on the GH5s

Sennheiser MKH 8050 Boom Microphone

Copyright 2018 by Curtis Judd 

Music - MzA - Copyright 2017 by Cary Judd, used with permission

Audio Loudness in Final Cut Pro X with Free Plugin from Youlean

For those who edit in Final Cut Pro X, ensuring that your audio was loud, but not too loud, and consistent from video to video has been a challenge. Of course you could buy expensive plugins to help with this and often what the pros do (it’s the cost of doing business and broadcasting your pieces on TV). But for those who are mainly publishing to the web and working on VLOGs or passion projects, the budget for expensive software or hardware loudness meters just wasn’t there.

Recently I found a free loudness plugin by Youlean which you can get over at Youlean. **NOTE** Several notified me that the Youlean site appears to display spam types of messages and opens new tabs. Close these windows and do NOT click on the links in them. I have notified the site owner and hopefully they can fix this soon.

And once you have that installed, you can get the right loudness consistently with the technique we show here.

For those not familiar with loudness normalization, here are a couple of other pieces where we go into some detail on how it works:

Links to Gear Discussed and Used to Record the VT500 lavalier review (which we use as a demo piece in this tutorial):

Voice Technologies VT500 Omni-directional Lavalier Microphone

Voice Technologies VT500 O Eco (same microphone without the waterproof case or extended accessories and lower price)

Blackmagic Ursa Mini Pro - for talking head shots. quite a lot of moire with this particular shirt

RODELink Wireless Lavalier Filmmaker Kit

Sennheiser EW 112p G3 Wireless Lavalier Kit (516-558 MHz)

Panasonic GH5 Camera - for product shots

Panasonic 12-35mm f/2.8 Zoom Lens

Copyright 2017 by Curtis Judd

Sound for Video Session: Loudness Normalization in Izotope RX5

For this week's session, we'll demonstrate how to loudness normalize your sound with Izotope RX 5.

Making your dialogue sound loud and present is a bit of a mystery for many independent filmmakers. It is surprising how many of the channels with large audiences have poor quality audio which is either very quiet so that viewers have to crank up the volume, or where the filmmaker cranked up the amplitude or gain of the audio in post to the point where there is plenty of distortion and clipping.

In this episode, we'll show one way to make loud, present sound without clipping or distortion.

Links we discussed in this session:

Free Compression Plugin: MCompressor

iZotope’s special deals on RX through November 14th 2016.