Overview

Volume Normalization is a feature that you can use to adjust the overall gain or volume level of a file. This allows you the control to ensure your audio is consistent across the entire Composition. 

Using Normalization

The way you access it is by opening the Project Files folder in the Project Sidebar and clicking the ellipsis to the right of the file name. From the pop-out menu that appears, select Normalize Audio.

Currently in Descript, we have two types of normalization: 

• Peak, which measures the volume of the loudest part of your audio file. It then uniformly boosts the volume of the entire file until that point reaches 0dBFS (the maximum allowed volume for a digital file). 
• Loudness (-24 LUFS), which normalizes according to the human-perceived loudness of the overall track. This method uses the EBU R 128 standard (For more on Loudness, read this Transom article).

Please Note: Using the Normalize Audio feature will destructively modify the Descript source file, and thereby all Compositions the file is used in. External source files that have been added to Descript (as opposed to those recorded directly in Descript) will remain unchanged.

For more on Loudness, read this Transom article.