Topic: Sound Studio 4 & Dynamics Compressor

[moonchilddave]

I have a lot of folk concerts - where there are often stories told in between the songs (see image below for the 1st set of a concert).  The big problem with this is you have to turn up the volume when listening to hear the story well and when the song kicks in it's way too loud.  So I've come to realize that I'm gonna want to use some compression on this - but I've yet to figure out the best settings to use.  Anyone else using Sound Studio 4 have some suggestions?

The compressor options are:

Threshold: Peak or RMS and dB
Compression Ratio: ____ to 1
Attack: ____ seconds
Release: ____ seconds
Post Gain: Auto or Manual and dB

Any help would be greatly appreciated since I have not done much with compression before.

[Brian Skalinder]

Compression is good for reducing dynamic range, but it doesn't quite sound like it's a fit for what you're trying to accomplish.  I think primarily you want to amplify the quiet portions, i.e. the stories and talking, between songs.  You might try a volume envelope, instead.

[moonchilddave]

I don't see a "volume envelope" anywhere in Sound Studio... It simply has volume/amplify where you specify how much in dB, and if I use that it sounds weird when the volume suddenly boosts.

[ashevillain]

Yeah there isn't a Volume Envelope in Sound Studio. There is an Envelope in the Fade Special menu but I'm not sure if that's gonna work well...it might though.

I have a different suggestion that would be very complicated and time consuming but would probably work well. I don't really want to type it out so I am going to suggest either:

1. download the trial of Adobe Audition (which is fully functional) or some other software trial that will let you use a volume envelope

2. use the Fade Special Envelope.

- you'll first have to boost the volume of the section you want louder....also include about 10 seconds before and after this section but note where the levels are peaking in those 10 second sections.

- then use the Fade Special Envelope on just those 10 second sections. For the Fade In portion your Envelope will start at whatever the dB level was that you noted for that section before you amplified it and will end 10 seconds later at the newly amplified peak. The Fade Out portion will be the reverse of that. Whatever curve you use is up to you. I would just use a straight line from one point to the other.

- The 10 seconds I mention is a completely arbitrary figure. Use whatever you can, but the longer you have to fade in/out to the newly amplified sections the less you will notice the transition IMO. Also it would be extremely helpful if there is some "dead air" in these sections....if it's constant noise (whether crowd or music, etc) it's going to be more noticeable

That's about as much as I can help without hearing the recording. I know Sound Studio inside and out and this is the easiest way I can think of. The other way involves cutting lots of different tracks, fading in and out of each and overlapping/mix pasting them back together....then you'd have to retrack as you normally would for a show.

[moonchilddave]

Are you aware of any plug-ins that would work with Sound Studio that would provide the volume envelope?  Even if they cost a modest fee?

[ashevillain]

Are you aware of any plug-ins that would work with Sound Studio that would provide the volume envelope?  Even if they cost a modest fee?

I'm not aware. SS only supports AU plug-ins though. I'd just do a search for them if I were you.

It's one of the problems with SS....it's a pretty basic program...it performs the functions that it has very well but it just doesn't cover that wide of a scope. It's pretty cheap though and I've been a die-hard user of it since version 2. I've not upgraded to version 4 because 3 works fine for me for what it does right now and I didn't like the changes to the GUI in 4.

I've been using the beta and now the trial version of Adobe Audition for more advanced stuff because it has a much wider scope of features....only got the trial for 14 more days though...

[~dave~~wave~]

Hey, moonchild, fellow dave here-

I just got my first macbook three months ago, I was a Sound Forge user on the PCs.
I freaking love Sound Studio 4.1.1.
I downloaded the trial version, processed one show with it, and went right back and paid for my full version immediately without using up my other 23 trials. 

I just got home from taping four days of Wakarusa, and I got 18 sets tracked and processed lickety-split.

I can suggest a couple of things to try.

Simplest might be to simply highlight the low amplitude talking interludes, and under the filter menu use Amplify/Volume (^A).

I like how the scale reads out in both dB and percentage, so you are reminded that +6dB is +200% gain.
The undo is so quick and easy that you can experiment until you have it right.

I use compression on spots where a drunk thumped my mic stand or the stage had a uncontrolled sound spike.

I visually scan my tracks, and use the compressor to squash the spikes without being too harsh.

In this case i would typically use Threshold peak, -20 dB, 15:1 ratio, 0 attack, 0.2 s release, manual post-gain -1 dB.

I appreciate that you can do all the compression tweaking, and then set the post gain as high or low as you need to get it right.

One drawback to Sound Studio is that they don't have a bunch of canned compressor presets that many other programs do, so you have to understand what you are trying to do or experiment.

If you have Garage Band 11, the compressor presets in there might give you some ideas.

Good luck.