True Peak Normalisation in Cubase?

I know there are true peak meters in Cubase but I need to normalise audio files automatically in bulk. As far as I can tell, this isn’t possible in Cubase?

You can do it with Direct Offline Processing: select multiple audio events, right click, Processes->Normalize , set the value and hit apply.

If you want to save the normalized files back to a dedicated file, it might be better to use an audio editor that supports batch processing (like Wavelab, Acoustica, Audacity or probably most others)

Offline processing is not “true peak”.

Oh, didn’t read precisely enough. Acon Digital can do that. There is a free demo available.

1 Like

You can do this:
Use peak normalization.
Use audio->statistics, there is a True Peak value.
Use peak normalization but use the difference from statistics “True Peak” to the desired level.
Im not sure that the statistics a a real true peak though.

@Charb Unfortunately I do not believe there is a native way in Cubase to normalize to true peak.

@cubace That is a good workaround but a little hard to do on a batch of files.

@Pedro_G Are you trying to help?

1 Like

Another clumsy workaround: Insert the Cubase Brickwall Limiter, set it to “DIC” (detect intersample clipping" and to the desired dB-value, then play back the part of the file with the highest peak value and increase the gain so that is just doesn’t get the limiter working…

If i apply the normalize to 0 dBFs , as mentioned in the link i send you, using the offline processing the master meter shows 0 dBFs , so i assume the Offline does true peak normalization.
If it doesn’t who cares, they measure the same point in time (true vs peak), only using more or less detail.

If you had read the link you posted yourself, you would have known that it is not true peak at all and that Cubase uses sample peak. No assumption needed.

Your converters care. I can only recommend you read up on the difference between sample peak and true peak.

2 Likes

For sure, but at least it can export the vales to clipboard so I would not to rule out that is impossible.

If your so “afraid” of the inter sample peaks on your converters why don’t you just leave some “space” like 0.2 or 0.3 in the normalization stage?

image

did they made it wrong ? i dont think so!

Those tracks you mentioned are a part of the loudness wars, so yes, they “made it wrong”. Why would you want unwanted and unpredictable distortion on your tracks? That’s just stupid or ill-informed.

Congratulations! You’ve picked some of my least favourite tracks of all time.

Thank god for Techno :smiley:

1 Like

Has anyone actually ever heard true peak distortion? I personally think that it has been a bit of a hysteria in recent years. I mean, for years no one really cared about it, and then suddenly it is the most dangerous thing in audio because someone measured that in certain DACs and situations it could potentially lead to distortion…. My (absolutely uninformed) guess is that actually audio professionals never really noticed any TP distortion, because they tend to use higher quality converters that have enough headroom anyway.
The problem with the loudness war was not TP, but the distortion resulting from massively overdone limiting and clipping.

2 Likes

What is wrong or what is right is an individual concept.
Focus on your mix and let it be . Make it sound good and musical.
Get away of distractions and you will find your way.

1 Like

So going over TP has nothing to do with squeezing more loudness out of a track?

Of course no, there’s no such thing of True Peak “distortion”, simply because True Peak is the representation of the waveform once it is converted back into an analog signal and played back through speakers. Music streaming platforms don’t care about True Peak, the only thing they care about is the actual digital signal / loudness.

The only thing that could ever produce distortion afterwards is the playback device itself. Depending on the components quality, the analog electrical signal can be altered, but it has nothing to do with the extra 0.5 dB TP. Assuming that the circuit is well made, it is supposed to handle a much higher voltage than what the DAC is able to generate.

And, people probably found out that some DAC can “distort” by feeding incredibly loud signals (maybe something like two-digit True Peak), so there is indeed a limit in the voltage that can be generated by converters, but under normal conditions this will never happen.

Anyway, if you compare 10 different playback devices they will all have different sound characteristics. And this is the same with speakers, and actually, those latter are what alters the signal the most… :grin:

2 Likes

Amen.
Crapy DAC will distort for sure! Im glad most of those “ugly” mp3 players are gone!

1 Like