PROCESS FOR BALANCING THE LOUDNESS OF DIGITALLY SAMPLED AUDIO WAVEFORMS

A loudness balancing process includes three operations. In a first operation, the user specifies a plurality of digitally sampled audio time domain waveforms and an adjusted maximum loudness for each waveform is generated and stored. This operation includes a retrieve and filter process that identifies a portion of each waveform with a maximum loudness, and an adjust and store process that generates an adjusted maximum loudness that is a maximum loudness for the waveform which is free of audible distortion due to clipping. In a second operation, each stored adjusted maximum loudness is retrieved and filtered. The filtering selects a minimum adjusted maximum loudness that is selected as a global maximum loudness. In a third operation, each waveform in the plurality of waveforms is loudness-balanced based on the global maximum loudness. This three step process assures a consistent maximum loudness across the plurality of waveforms and assures that no audible noise is introduced by loudness balancing process.