Topic: Audacity "mastering" settings [newb]

[shrems]

Hey y'all,
Last night I recorded my favorite bands with an a-t ATR20 (I know it's schwag) > Audacity on my laptop PC, raw mono.  I got a 40% signal using just my sound card pre-amp, sometimes spiking almost to 50%.  Obviously this recording needs gain before I post it...I have to turn my amp up all the way to enjoy the way it is.

How do I know how much gain?
Are there other Audacity settings I should know about?

Is this correct/sufficient lineage-- "ATR20>Laptop Integrated Soundcard>Audacity>WAV>FLAC"?  (I have already exported to WAV, and I will apply gain to the WAVs, is this bad?)

Thanks.

moeshroom

[calvinroots]

Highlight the whole recording, go to effects, "Amplify" and then choose how much...I usually go to -1.0 db

hope that helped ya

[shrems]

Thank you bro.

[calvinroots]

not a problem my friend