Taperssection.com
Gear / Technical Help => Ask The Tapers => Topic started by: admkrk on October 19, 2004, 08:40:34 PM
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i have to try to work on a tape this weekend. for whatever reason, the first and last set had levels were i set them, but everything inbetween is at a lowwer level. w/o normalizing, how can i adjust the gain so it's all the same? or did i just answer my own ??
kirk
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well changing the gain to match all the way through is normalizing....
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maybe i missunderstand normalizing then. i'm not wanting to bring all the frequencies to the same point. just want to raise the overall (middle of show) "equally" or lower the ends. i might not be makeing much sence as i'm not sure i'm explaining right.
doesn't normlizeing effect hf and lf unequally, to put them in the same place, so to speak? i want to keep h/lf in the same relationship to each other, and just raise or lower the overall gain so when it switches sets you don't notice it so much.
maybe someday i'll learn to express myself better or maybe normlizing is the only way to get it done right but the tape came out muddyer than i expected and i think normlizing will only make it more so.
i could be not right, and i DO apriciate the input.
kirk
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maybe i missunderstand normalizing then. i'm not wanting to bring all the frequencies to the same point. just want to raise the overall (middle of show) "equally" or lower the ends. i might not be makeing much sence as i'm not sure i'm explaining right.
doesn't normlizeing effect hf and lf unequally, to put them in the same place, so to speak? i want to keep h/lf in the same relationship to each other, and just raise or lower the overall gain so when it switches sets you don't notice it so much.
maybe someday i'll learn to express myself better or maybe normlizing is the only way to get it done right but the tape came out muddyer than i expected and i think normlizing will only make it more so.
i could be not right, and i DO apriciate the input.
kirk
kirk;
normalization effects only the AMPLITUDE of the wave. it's essentially a fancy amplitude adjustment tool.
let's say i wanted to normalize this wave:
(http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v405/leegeddy/normal1.jpg)
if i wanted to normalize the entire wave to 100% (0dB), CEP would take the highest value point (Point A), calculate the % or dB to render Point A to 100% (0dB) and apply that same value to the entire selected wave.
post normalization to 0dB:
(http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v405/leegeddy/normal2.jpg)
not much different than the original, because the Point A was only -0.5dB from 0, so the resultant was only a 0.5dB increase in amplitude to the entire waveform. contray to what some may believe, the proportional relationship of the wave is unaltered, and no changes in HF/LF were made by the process. it sounds the same dynamically. just a tiny bit louder.
look at what happens if i normalized the highlighted quiet section to 0dB:
(http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v405/leegeddy/normal3.jpg)
on the surface, the above resultant may be what you're looking for; however, you're going to get abrupt volume changes at the beginning and ending transition of the highlighted section.
what i suggest is an Amplitude Envelope. this applies a gradual/fast rise, level and a gradual/fast fall of the amount of amplitude adjustment you want. think of it as turning up a volume knob, holding it steady and turning it down, so there aren't abrupt changes in volume in the recording.
an obvious observation with Amplitude Envelope is that with larger the difference between the part you want to manipulate vs. the rest of the show, the difficulty level goes up since you really have to make careful choices to achieve smooth transitions. few small hints: you can utilize audience noises to your benefit which will help mask manipulations. nothing wrong with "trial and error", and the UNDO button is a friend. :)
CEP has an Amplitude Envelope in the Effects menu:
(http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v405/leegeddy/normal4.jpg)
it's difficult to read the Envelope Window in the .jpg so here's what it depicts in a nutshell.
the applied Amplitude Envelope is as follows:
Rise: from 12-14 sec. section: Amplitude rises linearly from 100% to 175%
Level: from 14-44 sec. section: Amplitude is constant at 175%
Fall: from 44-45 sec. section: Amplitude falls linearly from 175% to 100%
simply, you're "raising the volume steadily for 2 seconds from 100% to 175%, holding it steady at 175% for 30 seconds and turning it down back to 100% in 1 sec."
resultant looks like this:
(http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v405/leegeddy/normal5.jpg)
you can adjust the rise, level and fall time as you please to your liking.
i'm using CEP, but other wave editors will have similar Envelope function in their menu.
good luck and trust your ears,
marc
EDIT: few changes. grammar/spelling
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hmmm.
that looks exactly like what i ment. rained out of work today, so now all i need to do now is clearout some disc space.
thanks marc +t for the pics ;D
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Great tutorial! Thanks
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nice explanation leegeddy +T
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Nice Leegeddy.
+T on that. I thought I knew what normalizing was... now I totally know. I also didn't understand "envelopes" either.
Edit: There's a thread in the archival info called "what is normalization" or something like that- this would be a very, very nice addition to that thread.
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Edit: There's a thread in the archival info called "what is normalization" or something like that- this would be a very, very nice addition to that thread.
Done. Thanks for the suggestion, the thought had passed me by.
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+T Marc, awesome!
Hey, a coupla other guys are talkin' in another thread about compression within a waveform. Anyone wanna put up a similar tutorial on that in Cool Edit Pro?
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+T Marc, awesome!
Hey, a coupla other guys are talkin' in another thread about compression within a waveform. Anyone wanna put up a similar tutorial on that in Cool Edit Pro?
CEP has an excellent Help file. I'm not at home and in a position to do it, otherwise I might. Give the Help file a go, I bet you'll be surprised how useful you find it.
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+T Marc, awesome!
Hey, a coupla other guys are talkin' in another thread about compression within a waveform. Anyone wanna put up a similar tutorial on that in Cool Edit Pro?
thanks.
as far as dynamic compression, i will only use it if it's the absolute LAST option i have. the only time i've used compression was remastering a pure raw sbd recording. you know.. the ones with the kick drum hitting & clipping above 0dB and rest of the music is in the -20dB-ish range. with live audience recordings, i never had the need to use compression.
maybe i'll pull up the above mentioned sbd and write something up quickly.
marc
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Anyone wanna put up a similar tutorial on that in Cool Edit Pro?
I thought I remembered posting something out there on compression before. Not nearly as good a write-up as Marc's, but FWIW:
http://www.taperssection.com/yabbse/index.php?topic=9124.msg107047#msg107047
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the above is a great tutorial. For even more fun, pop the track into CEP multitrack (yeah, I know you only have one track).
In multitrack you can 'draw' the envelope the same way, but you can leave it there, see it, adjust it and nothing is committed until you do your final 'mix down'.