Normalization of MP3s

[radiodungog]

We are operating a comunity radio station.


We have been using Vortex box as music libary


We have notied that the MP3s off the Vortex box are not normalized


Is there a way to normalize the tracks via the vortex box?


We are also using automization software. so the MP3s have to be normalized.


Thanks in Advanced..

[andrew]

Usually mp3s are normalized during playback. Are you playing the music using VortexBox?

[radiodungog]

No we are using the Vortex box as a NAS and playing the music via a seprate computer




because it has to run through a scedual that we make up with promos etc... for the radio station

[andrew]

What ever computer you are running it through should do the normalazation. That way it could normalize the promos as well.

[radiodungog]

We are using radio station automated scheduling software like ZaraRadio or RadioBOSS. Both access the MP3 files from the Vortexbox sitting on the LAN and broadcast 24/7 according to the programme schedule we have set up. On ZaraRadio we can see a dramatic difference in levels from one music track to another. We have spoken to other community radio stations and it seems that they normalise all tracks in their music library as standard practice.


ZaraRadio has compression built in so that the output audio level is kept up before it is fed to the FM transmitter. This is a talk power and music power thing rather than a normalisation thing.


We sourced some free windows normalisation software yesterday and applied it to a test folder with 18 music tracks and set the MP3 level to 96dB. Results were perfect, and the audio levels from track to track were constant.


Rather than use external Windows software to normalise 25,000 MP3 music tracks we would prefer to do it on the Vortexbox directly under Linux.


Can this be done ?




Thanks ...

[andrew]

Yes, there are plenty of free Linux programs that can do this. SOX is included with VortexBox and is a good tool for this sort of thing.




http://sox.sourceforge.net/