Matching volume

Audio Production
1

I’ve always thought that matching volume (to -16LUFS in Audition) at the end was the a surefire way to make sure that your podcast is the same level throughout. However I’ve recently heard that the volume will only match to the loudest track. Is this correct?

2

Great question @mmasters!

Here’s a couple of different match loudness methods:

47
47902×552 83 KB

Matching to Peak Amplitude will do exactly this. It will amplify all audio to the loudest peak in the whole audio file.

20
20902×552 88.2 KB

However, if you match to a loudness standard (as you mention -16 LUFS above) which is the default for this feature it will look at the overall percieved loudness of your whole audio file. So each individual waveform is analysed in total and the average sound of each file adds to the volume increase calculation. It will not simply match to the loudest track.

3 Likes
3

Thanks Mike for the easy to understand answer!