Topic: Making a recording "louder" help

[alienbobz]

Have Soundforge 6.0 for my editing. Have this on stage (really not on stage, but near stage and feeding off monitors) recording. I love the range but it is too soft on some parts. It is nice during the loud parts of the songs, but the rest it just very soft. Have tried both raising the rms and peak (highest peak is about - .7 so peak wouldn't help). I ran this recording in my car today and I had to crank it all the way (35) just to hear it. Normally 25 is just fine for recordings to sound great, but it didn't for this one. Any help would be great.

Jarod

[Brian Skalinder]

Use compression to reduce the dynamic range and then add gain.  Not familiar with SF, but SF should have info on how to do it.

[alienbobz]

Only thing I could find is Dynamics in the Effects part. Could pick from either Graphic or Multi-band. Couldn't figure out Graphic, so I went with Mutli-band. Picked "Reduce loud plosives" from the menu, applied it, then normalized it. Seems good, but I just wanted to see if this is the "right" thing to do. Feels wrong. Still trying to figure this out...

[Brian Skalinder]

Dynamics sounds right.  In CEP, I know compression is under Dynamics Processing with two views:  Graphic or Traditional.  Graphic is a visual representation, Traditional is text-based.  There's also an option to apply the compression to a specific frequency range.

Compressors typically have (at least) two primary configurations:  ratio and threshold.  The threshold is the level at and above which you want to apply compression.  The system applies compression above the threshold and does not apply compression below the threshold.  The ratio determines how heavily you compress those signals above the threshold.  The higher the ratio, the more compression applied;  the lower the ratio, the less compression applied.

I'm guessing the "Reduce Loud Plosives" option is simply one of the pre-defined settings and that you can still modify the config to suit your specific needs and tastes.  Any other information on the settings for "Reduce Loud Plosives"?

[alienbobz]

From the help section for the Mutli-Band Dynamics:

"The Multi-Band Dynamics plug-in is essentially a compressor that only affects certain frequency bands. The possibilities for this type of compressor are endless, but the most common uses are for reducing sibilants (S sounds) and plosives (popping P sounds) or to tighten the bass in a mix without using EQ."

Went back to the Graphic option and it seems like you can do a lot with it. Just having a hard time figuring it out. Any ideas where to start as far as numbers? All of the presets don't seem to be what I want. Thanks for all the help.

Jarod

[Brian Skalinder]

If you're happy with the sound of the recording, apply the compression across the entire frequency range.  Where to start:  try a ratio of 2:1 at a threshold of -6dB.  Then apply gain to get your peak levels back up to around 0dB.  Listen, and repeat:  trial and error.  If the peaks sound okay (not squished or distorted) but the quiet sections aren't loud enough, raise the ratio and/or lower the threshold.  If the peaks sound squished or distorted, lower the ratio and/or raise the threshold.  If you go too high on the ratio and/or too low on the threshold, it'll sound like ass, so just listen to different settings to see which sounds best to your ears.

[alienbobz]

I think I got it to where I want it. Tried the ratio you gave me, but it seemed to make the recording too soft. Played around with the graph, put it the ratio at 2:1, and the threshold at -6. Made the highest peak about -15 (with just the normal ratio/thresold, it was about -30). Normalized it and now it sounds a lot lounder. Thanks for the help. +T

Jarod