Can normalization on MuseScore.com be turned off?
Hi folks. I know there has been some discussion about Normalization, but I did not find the answer to my question in those posts. Sorry if I missed it.
There are a few songs that I complete on MuseScore, and play at home just fine. However, when I upload them to the MuseScore website with their corresponding MP3 recording, I discover that the website has apparently "normalized" the recorded song and lowered it volume. Anywhere I have a "p" or "pp" dynamic now becomes so low I can barely hear it. I know that if my score contains any loud dynamics such as "mf" or "f", normalization will lower their volume for those measures, but it also seems to be lowering my low dynamics (pp and p) to even lower volume.
I don't want the loud volumes to dim, and I don't want the quiet dynamics to go even quieter. Is there a way to turn off Normalization on Musescore.com? If not, can I do something in the MuseScore program to fix this?
Thanks as always in advance.
Frank
ps - here is a link to one particular score that became too low on the website (particularly in the beginning):
Comments
Normalize never lowers volume - it only raises it. By definition, normalization is the process of raising the volume to make the peak be the maximum possible volume.
If on your particular system you are perceiving MuseScore playing louder than the website, it may simply be that you have MuseScore turned up louder than your browser in your system mixer.
In reply to Normalize never lowers… by Marc Sabatella
Thanks Marc. I did not know that normalize only raises volume, never lowers it. As to my Mixer volumes, I am aware that if I raise the overall volume with the left-most slider, it will NOT change the playback of the song on the website. But, what if I change the volume of each instrument, via the sliders under each instrument in the mixer? Will those volume setting be retained by the website? I ask because it seems they ARE retained. I lower the "chord" harmony settings in my program score all the time, and when played back on the website, they remain low, so ...
In reply to Thanks Marc. I did not know… by fsgregs
When I mentioned the system mixer, I don't mean within MuseScore - I mean the mixer provided by your operating system (e.g., Windows, macOS, Linux). That is what controls the overall volume of each application. It may be at some point you previously turned MuseScore up, or turned your browser down.
Within MuseScore, yes, the sliders for control the relative levels of each instrument are honored for audio export, including the audio that is exported when you publish to musescore.com. So if you turn one instrument up louder than the others, or softer, that applies to playback within MuseScore as well as in exported audio or online.
But overall volume is meaningless when sharing scores with others, because they each have their own systems with their own speakers and their own preferred listening levels. It's not your job to try to control the overall volume at which others listen to music, nor is it even possible because they each have their own volume controls. The whole point of normalization is to make that process as simple as possible - so people wanting to listen to music aren't forces to fiddle with their volume knobs because your music is set differently from .everyone else's. Someone who listens to music quietly will want your quiet, and someone who listens to music loudly will want yours loud. That's how ti's been done for literally decades.
In reply to When I mentioned the system… by Marc Sabatella
Thanks as always for the comprehensive reply, but sadly, I am now a bit confused. Let's say I set my Windows computer speakers at 50% volume. I then create a MuseScore score and set the dynamics and my Mixer sliders so that the song plays at a nice volume on my system. I then save the score and upload it WITH THE MP3 recording, to the MuseScore website.
When I play it back on the website by clicking the "Play" tab at the top, it should sound exactly as I uploaded it, since I did not change any volume settings on my own Windows system. But ... it does not always do so. In some songs, the volume of the playback on the website is much lower than the playback I experienced when played in MuseScore on my own system. It is as if the website LOWERED the volume of the overall song, possibly to normalize it so that the loudest note becomes the peak note. Every other note is increased or DECREASED in volume to compensate.
If so, I would like to turn Normalization off on the website (or in my MuseScore program before export) so the song is not arbitrarily lowered in the volume in some notes. I know you said it is not my job to adjust volumes during playback in the mixer, but that is what folks listen to when they decide to rate the song, or save it as a favorite or download it. What does it sound like when played, is very important to them, and to me.
In reply to Thanks as always for the… by fsgregs
Like I said, it seems you probably adjusted the system mixer to change the relative volume of MuseScore versus whatever browser you are using to view the score on musescore.com. You'll need to find your system mixer and adjust that to get musescore.com playback the way you want it on your system For everyone else, though, it will be normal already, since your system mixer doesn't affect anyone else's systems.
Again, you absolutely do not want to disable normalization. Not unless you want people giving up in frustration every time they try to listen to one of your pieces because it's louder or softer than everything else on their system. Normalization exists for a reason, so when listening to the radio for instance you aren't constantly having to adjust the volume for every song to have it the way you like it. The whole point is oso that people listening to your music here it at the volume level they have set.
Please read up on the history of normalization if you continue to have questions about why it is standard audio procedure and has been for decades. If you don't intimately understand how audio works, you absolutely should not be violating the normal international standards for this.
In reply to Thanks as always for the… by fsgregs
Perhaps this picture will further clarify what Marc is telling you.
It shows the advanced Sound settings of Windows where you can set the volume of individual apps. I assume that other operating systems have similar settings. If you are playing your score with different apps that have different volume settings you will hear different volumes.