Topic: Salvaging a slightly f'ed up recording

[blindcan]

I am trying to get into live music recording and i am using my iRiver with RockBox and a Recording Enhancements Pack that has lots of cool features for tapers. I recorded my first show and have a little problem because I am a total techno-retard, as you will see. 

I had a borrowed pre-amp that i know Jack-all about using and so I relied on the AGC feature on the iRiver. The "Live" AGC setting is for recording live music and sets the gain "automatically," so i was under the impression that I wouldn't have to fiddle with the gain, so i didn't make any changes to the initial gain settings, which were somwhere around 0. I was seeing the meters work, so i figured all was fine. I didn't realize how slow the gain would increase, so now my recording gets gradually louder, eventually reaching the optimum level after about 20 minutes and pushing the limit around 45 minutes into the first set.

So should I try to correct this using Sound Forge? I have the program but don't really know how to use it for something like that and i couldn't find any support for it. I played around with the Graphic Dynamics effect and that seems to do what i want, but i'm not sure of all the settings (threshold, ratio, attack, release), so i am afraid the result will be worse than the original. Basically on playback the music is in the -30 to -12 dB range with an occasional -10dB peak for the first 10 minutes or so, then by about 20 minutes is at about -24 to -10 with occasional peaks at -6 dB. By 45 minutes in it is peaking at -1.9 and is pretty much at max, once hitting -0.8.

So can I fix this, or should i leave it alone? I applied the graphic Dynamics to the first 20 minutes using a very gently arcing curve above the line so that it added

4.5 dB at -50
4.9 at -30
6.0 dB at -20
4.5 dB at -13 and
0 db at 0.4

 This seemed to give a pretty good result, but i was listening to it through a transmitter from my iRiver in the car. Is screwing with the dynamics worse than the gradual volume increase? Over the course of the recording you wouldn't notice it that much (but you might be reaching for the volume knob periodically and not know why).  also, the second set does the same thing, so when you go from the end of the first set to the beginning of the 2nd there is a noticable drop in volume on playback.

If i do apply the dynamics effect, should i select the whole set as one file and apply the settings the way i did for the 1st 20 minutes, or should i try to adjust the tracks individually? Does anayone have some kind of mathematical formula for setting the curve for optimum adjustment so that the levels are close to the same throughout? I went to a liberal arts college and became a writer, so I can offer no help.  sorry. thanks in advance for the all-knowig wisdom of the tapers' section!

Blind

Sorry. I probably got no business with this stuff. I can't understand half of what you guys are talking about in these forums.

[Evil Taper]

You could use a program like Acid that has a volume envelope tool to balance the volume change easy.  Compression doesn't intelligently increase volume, it increases overall volume of the file by limiting the dynamic range.

[blindcan]

Someone on the Rockbox forum suggested Audacity's envelope tool. I think that will do the trick after some fiddling, although it is limited to 150% expansion, which is not quite enough. Is Acid freeware? do you know how it compares to Audacity? Thanks for the help 

[John Kary]

Look in your DAW's help docs on Automation.  Learn how to automate the adjustment of the volume slider and adjust it accordingly throughout your recording.  You'll run into some obvious noise-floor issues if it has to boost the gain too much, but shoot for near uniform loudness throughout the whole show.

[blindcan]

what's DAW?

[BayTaynt3d]

Whatever you do in the future, you should only use NO AGC or SAFETY -- the rest of the settings are useless for music recording, they should be avoided like the plague. Better to set the levels right yourself than having the gain wander all over the place on it's own...