Topic: Audacity question

[jbell]

Normalize in audacity will fix the recording level changes?  I need to stop messing with the gain during shows.    Thanks in advance

[notlance]

There are several ways to adjust levels in Audacity.  If you adjusted gain between songs during the original recording, it is probably easiest to select the data and use Amplify.  If you adjusted the gain during a song, then I'd use the envelope tool to try and match the rate of level change.  Otherwise, you will have a sudden change in level which will be quite noticeable.

And here is some unsolicited advice: Don't change levels during recording unless you are seeing a lot of clipping during the music, or the peaks are way low, maybe -20 dB or more.  The great thing about digital is for most recorders with most music in most venues, if you get the levels within the same county you have enough S/N so that the recorder and pre-amp noise will be masked by the music and or ambient noise.  This was a hard lesson for me to learn having grown up with RtR where if the stars aligned I'd get maybe 60dB S/N.  Needless to say, setting proper levels during the recording were very important in the bad old days.

[dean]

^ Yep.

[NSL]

Would adjusting the gain on audacity be alright to do?  The amplify feature for this recording puts it where I have to check off the clipping box.  I have it at +6 gain right now.

[Shadow_7]

Normalize adjusts the Left and Right channels independently.  Not always advisable if you have a loud off center sound (like a clap).

Amplify adjusts both channels as a single unit (assuming stereo track).

You can hard limit to avoid clipping any unruly peaks.  One way to avoid intentional clipping.  And pretty much needed for live events where a door slam, clap, drum hit or other sound would otherwise lower the overall level of the recordings.

My sound devices MM-1's have stepped gain, so even if I adjust the gain mid show, I know how much to amp the previous stuff to match the adjusted stuff.  Which comes in real handy.  Just be sure to change gain in a break between songs or other relatively unimportant point since making the adjustment can inject a click sound into the track.

[NSL]

Just be sure to change gain in a break between songs or other relatively unimportant point since making the adjustment can inject a click sound into the track.

I added gain to the whole recording, would there be any problem with that? 

[Shadow_7]

It depends on how you define problem.  And how much gain.

I've added gain to some where the levels were so low that a fair percentage of the content fell into the portion of the dynamic range were bits didn't exist to record the content.  i.e.  silence....  AND THEN.... silence...  BUT...  silence....  Not to mention amping the noise floor of the signal chain.

If you're adding 10dB or less of gain, it's relatively harmless IMO.  If you're adding 30dB to 50dB, OUCH!!!

[NSL]

I just added +6, so I think that would be fine. 

[NSL]

Heres a few minute sample- https://www.yousendit.com/transfer.php?action=batch_download&batch_id=K0JTQmtkRkVCTWxFQlE9PQ

Any suggestions for what to do with it other than the gain?  Thanks in advance

[Shadow_7]

Heres a few minute sample- https://www.yousendit.com/transfer.php?action=batch_download&batch_id=K0JTQmtkRkVCTWxFQlE9PQ

Any suggestions for what to do with it other than the gain?  Thanks in advance

It looks like you've got room for another 7dB of gain on that track.  Assuming already 6dB added, that's about 13dB of gain you could add.  There is some pre-track fiddling that could be hard limited down to help allow the extra gain.  And/Or enveloped and de-amped.  Seems like you might have been playing with the gain at that point.

Effect -> Plugin 151... -> Hard Limit -> -7dB
Effect -> Amplify -> 6.5dB

as applied to that MP3 file.  Probably closer to hard limit at -13dB and amp 12.5dB on the original.  You want some headroom in there to avoid clipping and other things when converting to other formats.  -0.3dB minimum IMO.  -0.5dB to be safe.

You might also apply a low pass filter at 16kHz and high pass filter at 220Hz to improve clarity on cheap speakers.  It really depends on how true / edited you want the result relative to the original.

There's certain gain adjustments that can be made by bit shifting the original raw data, which leaves the original data / content untouched for the most part.  And other tricks.  I pretty much use audacity to trim and amp.  Or if a track is pretty hosed up it can salvage some instructional / historical stuff if it's stuff that doesn't need to seem perfect to start with.

[NSL]

Thanks for the info, i'll mess around some more with it.  That was the first song and I was messing around a little with the gain on that song if I remember correctly.  I haven't used Audacity to edit anything before so all of this is new to me.  How do you edit the low pass filter?