Topic: Audio editing query (using Adobe Audition)

[Unitmonster]

So last night I taped Bruce Hornsby at a small theatre in London (about 500 people).  Overall I'm happy with the sound of the show, except that the sound was REALLY low coming from the PA (like you could hear him tapping his foot on the floor while he played, and hear someone a row in front of you scratch his arm mid-song). 

Since the crowd was both respectful AND into the music, the parts where Bruce is playing are quiet, noise-wise (except for the sound of people shifting in their seats, the odd cough, etc.) but the applause between songs is WAYYYY loud. I was thinking of editing this using Adobe, by lowering the amplification during the applause (where no music is playing), but am not sure if there is a "best" way to do it.  Any tricks or suggestions?

here's a screen shot of what the soundwave looks like at the moment.  I know the levels for the music are too low, but I didn't want the applause to get too saturated.  If I can lower the applause levels, I'll normalize the whole thing.

[Scooter]

You could approach it a couple of ways.  You could...

A:  Use a limiter like Waves L1 or L2, and run it through that 3-4 times with a setting of 3-4dB of gain reduction each pass.  That will bring up the music in relation to the applause by about 9-12dB.  But different limiters have different sounds.  I think the L2 is very kind to peaks when it limits and doesn't round them off too bad.  Other limiters are not quite so good.

B:  Highlight the areas of applause and just simply reduce those areas by like 6dB or so.  You will prolly have to trail and error it to get the trasition between the music and the applause areas to not sound abrupt or wierd.  you could try crossfading the areas between the music and applause that might help it to not sound abrupt.

[hexyjones]

I think you will get the best results with the manual reductions in volume...select and reduce...you should be pleased with the results...dont forget to noramlize when you finish...

Sounds like some odd conditions with the PA being so soft...

If you want to avoid the huge applause swells at these kinds of shows...resist getting seats too deep in the center...If you cant get in the front 1/4 of the room - start opting for the sides...some of these theatre-type rooms are like parabolic dishes when it comes to crowd niose...

[deadhoarse]

You can easily fix this by running the Dynamics Processor on the loud clapping (In Audition,Effects>Amplitude, Dynamics Processing:
example:
Here you can see 1 spike in the wav:


Highlight the spike, and select Dynamics Processing/Limit Hard.  (start low, -6db, then increase as needed. You may have to go lower than the highest preset, -12db. In that case, just manually change the line on the graph)


Here you see it smoothed out the spike.  If you tinker with it, it will sound seamless with the rest of the music.


If you want, PM me and send along a clip and I'll help out.

[dklein]

You could approach it a couple of ways.  You could...

A:  Use a limiter like Waves L1 or L2, and run it through that 3-4 times with a setting of 3-4dB of gain reduction each pass. 

I would avoid repetitive processing steps - just get to where you want in one step.

The compression approach is just basically running hard limits, which you can do on its own.  To avoid the pumping sound, drop the look ahead time down to 0 or 1ms. 

[Unitmonster]

thanks for all the advice guys!  I tried the manual method last night and dropped the applause bits to between 60 and 70% of original amplitude, then normalized. I"ll do a second run with the limiter approach tonight and see what sounds better.

Thanks!
ps. Hexy, you're probably right. I was 12th row centre for the show.  However, I think a big portion of the applause on the tapes comes from people within the few seats beside me.

[Unitmonster]

well, I did the edits (as much as I could without leaving noticable artifacts) and have the torrent posted at:
http://bt.etree.org/details.php?id=7620


I'm pretty happy with it, though I still think the crowd is too loud.  Luckily it was nice and quiet when it counted... during the music!