Quote:
Is there an option to set it to another value, say -18dB peak or RMS?
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Usually, you simply adjust (or automate) the
relative volume of a track to what
sounds right, and then adjust your overall level with the master slider.
If you feel like a track/item is too low,
I'd suggest adjusting it by ear.
Pros often record at -12 to -18dB. That allows headroom for unexpected peaks, and maybe just because it's tradition. It also allows headroom for mixing and effects, although with floating-point processing you don't have to worry about that. There's no
technical advantage to re-adjusting to that level
after recording.
Normalization usually means adjusting the level for 0dB peaks (although some people like to normalize to -1dB or so).
Normalization is usually done as the final step, or as part of the mastering process. Or, you might want to normalize if you are temporarily rendering/exporting to an integer format (16-bit or 24-bit WAV).
0dBFS (zero decibels full scale) is defined as the maximum "count" for an integer format. You can't go over 0dB in integer and if you try you get clipping. With low integer numbers you get quantization noise and if your "count" goes below 1, you get zero (silence). ADCs, DACs, and "regular" WAV files are integer.
In floating point, 0dBFS is defined as 1.0. There is essentially no upper or lower limit with floating point, and since REAPER. uses floating-point internally, you don't have to worry about clipping (or quantization noise) except when recording and when rendering.
Since the raw numbers are different for 8-bit, 16-bit, 24-bit, and floating-point formats, your software or your drivers automatically adjusts so that 0dB always sounds like 0dB. (Although all 0dB normalized files don't sound equally loud, because human hearing is more complicated than that.)