Karaoke Forums

Has anybody ever checked the recorded levels of their karaoke tracks? The reason I ask is this:
I occasionally go along to my local karaoke hot spot and warble a few tunes. I have all my songs, preset to the keys I like, recorded on a data pen. The KJ knows me and plugs my pen in at the start of the session and I know there won’t be any little surprises with what I hear from the speakers or see on the monitor.

So far so nice.

But last time my wife commented that my music seemed consistently softer than that for the other singers. I asked the KJ about it and he said, yes, he’d noticed that before and usually compensated for it. Obviously, this one time he didn’t for some reason.

I checked when I got home and confirmed that all my tracks were around the 89db mark, the level recommended by MP3Gain which I use to normalise all of my tracks. I boosted all of the stuff on the data pen by 3db and immediately most of them (around 80%) were marked with a red Y, which says they will clip at some point.

My KJ seems to use mostly Sunfly tracks and, since he is a non-technical kind of guy, I assume he hasn’t normalised them as I would. Which suggests to me that most of the tracks he uses are clipping. I suppose over the hubbub of punters chattering, stamping their feet and clapping along to the music, a little clip here and there would pass unnoticed. But, it sort of makes me wonder why some of us (not me) spend a lot of dosh on expensive amps and speakers when the MP3 files have distortion built in.

I pulled out some (un-normalized) Sunfly tracks and measured them in MP3Gain and they were all around the 92-93 db level. AND 80% of them were clipping. I haven’t checked any other manufacturers’ products but assume they are likely to be at a similar level.

Comments, anyone?

i replay gain mine to 93dB and even if it says clipping, it is not audible if it is there.

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Paradigm Karaoke, The New Standard.......Shift Happens

I have never bothered to look at my tracks. I know some tracks are lower or higher db than others, but I compensate on the fly for that. Certainly not worth my time to go through 65,000 tracks and normalize them at this point.

-Chris

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-Chris

Chris, with MP3Gain, you just point it at the proper directory and it will automatically go through all of the files for you.

All of my karaoke is in .ZIP files. So I would have to extract, normalize, then re-ZIP. Even though all of this it fairly automatic, there is a LOT that can go wrong with that many files. I will add this to the "To Do When I have absolutely nothing better to do" list

-Chris

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-Chris

A track won't actually clip anything in your system just because it's normalized to 93db unless you have low spec'd equipment and your gain structure is out of wack. I think they probably set that flag up as more of a guideline than anything. The gain structure throughout your system is what would determine if the track clipped anything throughout the gain stages or not.

Even the crappiest speakers can typically handle up to around 88-90db before clipping. My mains can easily handle 99db continuous and spikes up to 131db assuming proper gain structure, so a track recorded at 93db would not come anywhere close to clipping my system, even at much much higher volumes than I would ever realistically use. That said, I pad my DJ tracks at 89db and don't normalize my karaoke tracks at all, and practise proper gain structure so that I could use the full range of my volume faders and never clip anything.

Anyway, point being, assuming your KJ has a decent system, there's no issues at all with tracks normalized to 93db. You program flags those as a warning, it's not a set rule that they WILL clip any of your components or speakers. With proper gain structure, you would limit the input signal level from the player to your mixer so that by the time the signal was amplified, it would match the top end specs of the weakest link in your signal chain, and no longer particularly be a 93db signal.

Good luck!

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C Mc
KJ, FL

I use Breakaway. Everything that comes out of the sound card is normalized on the fly without altering the original files - be it my files or a customer files.

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LIKE Lonman on Facebook - Lonman Productions Karaoke & my main site via my profile!

I used MP3Gain many years ago then I found "Breakaway". Like Lon says.... why alter "Everything that comes out of the sound card is normalized on the fly without altering the original files - be it my files or a customer files."

I have been using Breakaway for nearly 5 years. Here is the link:
http://www.claessonedwards.com/index.ph ... &Itemid=59

MP3Gain has gone the way of CD's. Right Bazza?

I have played around with Breakaway a little bit and there was a good thread on it from a while back here on the forums. I will take a look at that again after I make sure I have resolved my current issue.

-Chris

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-Chris