Is it possible to normalize with the average method but not higher than a specified peak value?

Question

I would like to have Audiograbber normalize using the "average" method...but if that method causes the peak value to exceed a specified threshold, I'd like to stop there. In other words, if I normalize to an average value of -10db but that causes the peaks to reach any higher than -5, I'd want to stop at -5db and go no higher. Is that possible?

Answer 1

Not possible with Audiograbber. It sounds like maybe you're trying to mimic the features of ReplayGain. Rather than pre-processing the ripped PCM audio in Audiograbber, you can instead post-process the encoded file (MP3 or whatever) so that the volume is normalized to a standard level. This is done either by changing the volume levels in the file itself, or by adding tags that tell your media player to do it upon playback. You can specify how to handle peaks (allow clipping or not) and whether to treat the track as part of a collection (album) so relative levels from track to track are preserved. See http://wiki.hydrogenaudio.org/index.php?title=Replaygain