Normalize alternative?

As I understand it Normalize puts the sample as loud as it can go before it distorts, is there anyway to make the samples louder on the 500 without making them as loud as they can go? Say 75% rather than 100.

My set up is Stanton 500 > Technics 1210 MkII > Cambridge 640p > MPC500

I'm looking at replacing the headshell/cartridge/stylus with an Ortofon Concorde Pro S so any comments on this would also be appreciated.

i´d only recommend a spherical stylus if you intend to use it for scratching. for sampling you should go with an elliptical stylus (such as the ortofon arkiv).

i don´t know the 500, but normalizing to a specific amount is possible with the 1000/2500 running jjos

I would suspect in order to do what you want to on your MPC 500, you would need to understand the normalizing process, that of which I probably couldn't tell you how the MPC 500 does it. What I understand is the most simple normalization function will take the peaks, and adjust the rest of the sound to a scale of what the peak of the sample is. So say normalize says your peak before normalization is at 50% before distortion, then the whole sample after normalize will be 50% louder, so the peaks are 100%, but the rest of the sound is not at 100%. If you really need to do this, I would suggest running samples in Audacity and utilizing its normalize function if you don't want to go through all the hassle of editing sounds 1 by 1 on your MPC 500.

My method is not using Normalize at all. I listen to it and meditate on where I'll position my Buddha Banger Palm strike, then PLAOOW!! The technique consists of lowering the samples that sound louder than the one that sounds low, then you boost the Main Volume on the 500 and record it in your DAW with the gain at a decent level. When done right, you'll be able to shift one's head back, snapping the neck to cause infectious nodding.