How to Normalize Audio in Premiere Pro Correctly

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Published: November 1, 2021 | Last Updated: September 17, 2024

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Normalizing audio for your video projects should be the first step in your audio editing and mixing workflow.

Normalizing is boosting the loudest value of your audio to reach a specified threshold. Premiere will increase or decrease the volume based on your set decibel level.

We normalize audio to help achieve a consistent decibel level between all of our audio clips.

This article will show you how to normalize audio in Premiere Pro easily. There are two primary methods: normalizing the individual clips or normalizing the mix track.

Normalize one or multiple clips

This normalization method can be used on one or multiple clips on your timeline. We recommend starting with one, but you can easily apply this process to multiple clips.

I have a single audio clip on my timeline, as shown below. The waveform is fairly consistent throughout the entire clip.

However, the audio is fairly low. On the audio monitor, it looks like it peaks around -12 to -15 dB, as pictured below.

In this example, we are mixing an audio clip that will be published on YouTube. If we keep it at this volume, our audio will sound very low on YouTube, so we will need to boost it.

YouTube videos generally sound good when they peak around -3 dB, so we will make this our threshold.

To normalize the audio, we will need to open the Audio Gain dialog box. Right-click your clips on the timeline and hit Audio Gain. You can also find this with the keyboard shortcut G.

Check out our guide to Premiere Pro shortcuts [PC/Mac].

A window will appear with a few different parameters.

First, note that the peak amplitude is on the bottom. We guessed the peak of our audio was around -12 to -15 dB, which was pretty close to the actual peak of -10.9 dB. This means we will want to adjust our audio to about +8 dB for the value to reach -3 dB.

There are four ways this can be done:

1. Set Gain to:

This is our clip’s current gain level. We can set this to a specific gain level, but it will be on the clip’s scale. The default clip audio level for any imported clip in Premiere is 0 dB.

For example, we want to boost the gain from the default 0 dB to 6 dB. Enter 6 in the Set Gain parameter, and the gain will be boosted to 6 dB on the clip’s scale.

However, let’s say the audio level is too high, and we need to decrease it to 2 dB. Notice how the set gain is now 2 dB for the clip. We did not decrease it by 2 dB levels but rather set the clip itself to 2 dB.

How do we apply this to normalizing? We know we must adjust our audio 8 dB levels, so setting the gain to +8 dB should do the trick.

This technique can be applied with multiple selected clips using the same process.

2. Adjust Gain by:

This option allows you to adjust the gain by a specified dB level. It is similar to the previous parameter, but you can adjust by a specific dB level instead of setting the clip to a specific dB level.

For example, let’s say we’ve adjusted the gain to +6 dB on the clip. We want to adjust the gain again by adding +3 dB, but we don’t want to set the clip to +9 dB on the previous parameter.

We can type 3 on the Adjust Gain by parameter, and Premiere will adjust the gain to +9dB. This method added +3 dB instead of setting the clip’s level to 3 dB.

Normalizing will work the same way as the previous parameter. Do the math to determine how much you need again and adjust accordingly.

This technique can be applied with multiple selected clips using the same process.

3. Normalize Max Peak to:

This parameter means that the loudest peak in one or more clips will determine how much gain needs to be increased or decreased. It is much quicker than using the previous two methods for normalizing. We can easily set the desired decibel level, and Premiere will normalize the audio.

For example, we mentioned that we want the waveform to peak at -3 dB for YouTube. We type -3 in this parameter, and Premiere adjusts the audio.

The Set Gain to parameter has changed to 7.8, around the 8 dB level we estimated earlier. The highest level should now peak at -3 dB.

This setting is also powerful when it comes to multiple clips. You can change the gain of all selected clips collectively, and the loudest peak will determine how much gain needs to be increased or decreased.

4. Normalize All Peaks to:

This parameter is the same as the normalized max peak but with one major difference: it adjusts the gain of each clip based on its peak values instead of all of the clips collectively.

Normalize the Mix Track

Normalizing the Mix Track is pretty straightforward. This method will normalize the track’s overall audio levels rather than the clips’.

First, select the timeline you want to normalize in the Project Panel.

Second, select Sequence > Normalize Mix Track. A popup window will appear.

Third, enter a dB value. We will enter -3 dB since we want our audio to peak at -3 dB.

That’s it. The master track for the sequence will be normalized to -3 dB.

This method is good if you’re in a hurry and want to normalize all of your audio quickly, but I recommend using one of the previous methods, as you will have more control overall.

Conclusion

As mentioned, normalization is an important step in audio editing and mixing.

Setting the gain to a standard level will make it much easier to add other effects to your audio.

Play with the different methods and parameters to see what works best for your workflow.