Topic: Editing in post question - normalizing volume over a track?

[Diamond_D]

I taped Buddy Guy this past Saturday, and it sounds pretty damn good to me, but what makes it tough is that half the time he stands waaaay back from the mic and has his guitar turned way down, nearly whispering, and then he'll turn it all the way up and scream the next verse. I set levels for the loudest parts obviously, but when I maximize volume in goldwave the quiet parts are still very very quiet.

Is there a way in either Goldwave or Audacity that I'm not seeing, where I can do something akin to normalizing the volume across the single wav? To up the low parts and take down the higher peaks a bit? Thanks in advance, and I'll be posting some samples when I get it tracked out and edited!

[OOK]

undo the normalization first
Use Dynamic compression:
   set the attack to 1ms, set the threshold to -18db, set the release to 500ms, at a ratio of 2:1
this will even out the tonal quality...it will bring up the quiet passages and tone done the screaming ones.  It will shorten your dynamic range, but not kill it.............

[cleantone]

set the attack to 1ms, set the threshold to -18db, set the release to 500ms, at a ratio of 2:1

I agree that compression is what your looking for. I would urge you to try some different settings out though.

1ms attack is likely gonna lose transients, I'd try a higher number than that. When the compression kicks in too fast it will dull your high end, listen to the cymbols. The -18db threshold might be a little low (might be fine) I'd start closer to -10db but again, play with it. 500ms might be a bit long and take away from your bottom end, I'd play with samller numbers. 2:1 sounds like a good place to start.

Use your ears though, what he said might work fine but you should play with the settings some and not just plug that in and process it. Good luck!

Oh yeah, your gonna want to make up for the compression with a little boost in gain. There should be some sort of "makeup" gain on the compressor, bump that up 2-3 db to bring the overall levels back up.

Your basically bringing up the low peaks, taking down the high peaks and then bringing it all up a little bit. Your dynamics will be closer but with the right settings not lost...

[Diamond_D]

thanks for the tips guys. I ended up, in Goldwave, going into Compressor/Expander, and boosting the quiet parts, instead of doing any compression. I had to set both attack and release as low as they'd go (.001 seconds) to get good results with no phasing. Then I used the Maximize feature to set the max levels up to -1 dB. Came out real nice, and much more even sounding, and no added artifacts or phasing to my ears.