evening sound levels

kampana's icon

hi,

i have a patch in which a large amount of audio loops are being trigged simultaneously. problem is that each file contains audio material with a different loudness level, and i would like them all to be heard in the same level, so i won't have to adjust the gain of each sample individually. is there a way to a neatly do that in MSP? or editing each file is the only option?

regards,
K.

kampana's icon

just to make it clear - i simply want to have something in my msp chain that will normalize/flatten the signal coming in, so all sounds will be played back in the same loudness level.

MIB's icon

I believe the waveform~ object has a normalize option... I have never used it, but it might be what you need.

pid's icon

errr... i think it is called 'compression', sir. quick and easy in max are the "omx.*" objects...

seejayjames's icon

waveform~ can indeed normalize your buffer~ sound. your mileage will vary, especially with sounds that have large differences in the low-to-high levels, but it can be a start. Probably best to do the compression as mentioned, either with omx~ or another program (many can do batch commands too).

FRid's icon

Normalize -1. 1. does the job too, right?

FRid

FRid's icon

That would be "normalize~"

kampana's icon

thanks for the replies. normalize~ works perfectly.
a slightly different question, hope it isn't a crime not to ask it in a different thread:

what technically happens when you load a stereo file into an sfplay~ which is set to mono? is it automatically summing up the two channels into mono or just picking one of them?

thanks,
K.

goodparleyandorfing's icon

you get the left channel only