How does Normalize M4A Loudness decide the right level?
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Concretely, loudness is measured against the EBU R128 standard and a single gain adjustment brings the whole file to the target LUFS — which is what streaming platforms actually measure, and is not the same thing as peak normalisation. The file is measured first and the correction follows from the measurement, rather than a fixed gain being applied and hoped for.
What is the difference between this and just turning it up?
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A volume change applies a number you chose. Normalisation measures how loud the file actually is and computes the gain needed to hit a target, so ten files recorded at ten different levels all arrive at the same one.
Does the source format affect normalisation?
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It does. M4A is an MP4 container holding AAC or ALAC audio — the default for iTunes and Apple Music files. That determines whether the corrected audio can be written back exactly or has to be re-encoded.
Anything specific to M4A here?
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Yes — an .m4a can hold either AAC or ALAC, so lossy and lossless files share one extension and have to be told apart by inspection. Worth knowing when the goal is a consistent set rather than one file.
What loudness target should I aim for?
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About -14 LUFS is what the major streaming platforms normalise to, -16 LUFS is the usual podcast target, and -23 LUFS is the broadcast standard. Going louder than the platform target gains you nothing — the platform simply turns it back down.
Does normalisation compress the dynamics?
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No. It is a single gain adjustment for the whole file, so the relationship between the quiet and loud parts is untouched. Compression and limiting are separate operations and are not applied here.
