# What does normalizing audio mean?

Normalizing means adjusting the whole recording up or down so it lands on a target level. It changes loudness, not balance — it will not fix a quiet guest against a loud host, because it moves everything by the same amount.

![Normalizing lifts the whole recording to a target level, so a quiet guest and a loud host both move up by the same amount. The gap between them is unchanged — normalizing fixes loudness, not balance.](https://mubert.com/tools/cast/docs-media/diagrams/what-is-normalization.svg)

That distinction catches people out constantly. If two people are at different levels, normalizing the mix does nothing to the gap between them; you have to fix the levels of the two voices relative to each other first.

## Related

- [What is LUFS?](https://mubert.com/tools/cast/docs/what-is-lufs)
- [What LUFS should my podcast be?](https://mubert.com/tools/cast/docs/loudness-lufs)

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Source: https://mubert.com/tools/cast/docs/what-is-normalization · Cast docs
Last updated: 2026-09-14