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Gear / Technical Help => Ask The Tapers => Topic started by: am on March 21, 2011, 04:56:01 AM

Title: How you amplify faintly recorded music?
Post by: am on March 21, 2011, 04:56:01 AM

Had my first experience of stealth recording a large classical orchestra with singers with a pair of CA14's line-into Sony D20 with the recording level at 3.5. Unfortunately, the recorded music came out too faint but the sound is good.

Is there any thing I can to bring the sound up? 

Appreciate some help. Thanks

Title: Re: How you amplify faintly recorded music?
Post by: rhinowing on March 21, 2011, 05:02:45 AM

can you post a sample?

is the music soft, but with loud applause, or is the entire recording quiet?

Title: Re: How you amplify faintly recorded music?
Post by: ilduclo on March 21, 2011, 08:06:35 AM

is this an old cassette portable? I couldn't find a match to the deck on google......you can try to amplify or normalize using any audio editor, but it may sound hissy. If it is a more modern deck (?) and you recorded at 24 bit or above, you may do better....

Title: Re: How you amplify faintly recorded music?
Post by: acidjack on March 21, 2011, 08:38:50 AM

The function you're looking for is "AMPLIFY" in Audacity and most other programs.  However, note that depending on how quiet the preamps in your machine are, you may end up with a lot of hiss from the preamp. 

Title: Re: How you amplify faintly recorded music?
Post by: taperj on March 21, 2011, 09:57:22 AM

The Amplify function in Audacity is one way, Normalize in other programs is another, or ReplayGain(if you have a ReplayGain aware player) is yet another, these are the 3 monsters you're looking for. Be warned, they will amplify everything, including hiss.

Title: Re: How you amplify faintly recorded music?
Post by: yousef on March 21, 2011, 11:48:09 AM

The DeNoiser plug-in that comes bundled with WaveLab is very good at reducing mild to moderate hiss in a way that doesn't adversely affect the music.

I'm sure there must be free and cheap variations available.

If you want to upload a short sample somewhere, I'd be happy to have a play around with it.

Title: Re: How you amplify faintly recorded music?
Post by: jibooer on March 21, 2011, 08:47:55 PM

i concur with the denoiser plug-in, also a bit of EQing might help as well...