i'd like to point out guys that i wasnt trying to override anything else that was said on this subject in the post, all the knowlege that Torque input here is spot on, and we thank him for that.
when i first started out i used to use the RMS normalisation in Soundforge to level my tracks, but when i realised what it was actually doing to the wave files, i realised that if i built the tunes carefully, i wouldnt have to use it.
so now my tunes come out as it were already normalised. they almost always have an RMS value around -13 to -14.
i'd also agree with Torque that the figure should be in the region of -10 to -14 for techno, its not so much about 'but surely all the DJ has to do is turn up the gain on the mixer' its more about the impact the tune has when the DJ is listening to a pile of tunes on headphones in the record shop. if youre tune is -17, and everyone elses is -10, all your hard work will just dissappear into the ether.