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Is there a trick to balancing channel volume?

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JonG:
Excuse my lack of technical terms--I'm no sound engineer.

The more I tape, and the I more I work on editing the shows, the more I notice that there's a significant variation in what I *thought* were balanced channels between shows. Say I'll go between shows and find several that each favour either the left or right channel to varying degrees--at least when compared to each other--despite my thinking the balance was good for each show at the time of editing.

I try to balance the channels according to where the bulk of the waveform is when looking it in Sound Forge, but this is mostly eyeballing and listening for it to sound "right." This isn't a problem with every show, and I *think* it's more of a problem at amplified shows rather than acoustic ones. I especially have trouble when there's a significant differences between the channels from the outset, as in when one channel's peaks are significantly lower than the other's due to dampening from the bodies around me. I'm wondering if there's a better and more accurate way to handle this.  ???

Let me know if this reads confusingly and if samples would help. Cheers guys.  :cheers:

Gordon:
in wavelab you can pick individual channels and check the gain of each.  figure out the difference and raise the lower one to match as best you can.

JonG:
Thanks for the tip. I'm messing around in WaveLab Elements now, should I be looking at the average value int he "Global Analysis" window?

JonG:
Here's an example.

According to WaveLab, this sample's right channel's average loudness is just .1dB lower than the left and has peaks roughly .5dB quieter than the left, yet the right channel sounds louder to me.
http://www.mediafire.com/file/700hso2c4d2ub7j/

And this is what I came up with in Sound Forge several days ago, which sounds more balanced, at least in comparison, to me.
http://www.mediafire.com/file/bo8848p16b96ct8/

Are my ears made of tin? Is it because the right channel is "clearer" than the left?

For reference, here's something completely different that both my ears and WaveLab agree is balanced.
http://www.mediafire.com/file/dy6aanfsso374h1/

TheMetalist:
I have the balance problem with my AKG CK63 capsules as well. It's really annoying. I guess it's caused by the different freq curves between left and right channel. I have tried to eq each channel on their own to find the right balance but so far I can't say I have succeeded. I would need some advice as well.

By listening to your samples, the last one (dy6aanfsso374h1) sounds way more balanced to me than the other two. Seems like you removed some of the bass mudd in left channel?

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