Topic: smoothing out volume fluctuations?

[pfife]

What do you guys use to smooth out volume fluctuations caused by tweaking the levels?  Assuming that you do this...

got a recording that needs a bit of this...

Normalization?
Compression?

I'd like to do the least amount to it, to keep it as "pure" as possible, but I do feel that I need to fix this.

Thanks-
Andrew

[heath]

I've had good success writing fader automation.  ymmv

[pfife]

I've had good success writing fader automation.  ymmv

Yeah, I've been trying to do this, but I am not having much luck making it better...

Here's an open question- this recording has about 10 spots or so where I was EXTEREMELY active with the levels- there are about 3 that are plainly audible on a regular system, but the others are barely noticable to me, except on headphones.   Otherwise, I think its a pretty good recording except these spots.

Some of these are inevitable b/c of the initial setting of the levels, but I was trying to tweak it for quite a while, and it was a relatively quiet show, so these swoops in gain were exagerated by the fact that I had the knobs turned up quite high already, and the UA-5 is really sensitive to volume changes when you are past about 2 oclock on the knobs.  Tape and learn.... tape and learn....

So my question is-  if you had a recording such as this, would you seed it?  Obviously I'd put in the text file/torrent description that these swoops exist... but I think its a tape that has a number of blemishes, but otherwise, its still ok, and I think people would still enjoy it... 

[macdaddy]

I've had good success writing fader automation.  ymmv

what's that?

[Brian Skalinder]

I say seed it.  I seeded an APC show on which I absolutely mangled the levels the first 7 minutes or so.  I smoothed it out as best I could in CEP by selecting a region and:

[1]applying a linear fade-in/out
[2]applying an amplitude envelope

[1] will do an even fade-in/out across the region, while [2] allows more customization within the region, i.e. fade-in sharply in the first 3 seconds, then only slightly for 10 seconds, then moderately for 4 seconds.  Had I spent more time customizing with [2] I would've had better results, but ultimately I got fed up with the process and/or happy enough with the recording.

I've had good success writing fader automation.  ymmv

Yeah, I've been trying to do this, but I am not having much luck making it better...

Here's an open question- this recording has about 10 spots or so where I was EXTEREMELY active with the levels- there are about 3 that are plainly audible on a regular system, but the others are barely noticable to me, except on headphones.   Otherwise, I think its a pretty good recording except these spots.

Some of these are inevitable b/c of the initial setting of the levels, but I was trying to tweak it for quite a while, and it was a relatively quiet show, so these swoops in gain were exagerated by the fact that I had the knobs turned up quite high already, and the UA-5 is really sensitive to volume changes when you are past about 2 oclock on the knobs.  Tape and learn.... tape and learn....

So my question is-  if you had a recording such as this, would you seed it?  Obviously I'd put in the text file/torrent description that these swoops exist... but I think its a tape that has a number of blemishes, but otherwise, its still ok, and I think people would still enjoy it... 

[mmmatt]

I do this a lot on my matrix recordings, especially when the engineer and I are doing the dualing levels thing on the first song or two.  You can make a smal amplitude change in the middle of a song if you end it on an impact of the next passage... like a snare hit or the start of a loud guitar rif, and it wioll go mostly unnoticed.  Otherwise I sometimes bring the levels up in a section and then do a long fadeout/in back down/up to the level of where my adjusted section ends.  In most programs you can adjust the end of the fade to be more than zero, and this will allow you to play with levels a bit.
     Best is to not have aproblem in the first place, and a svu meeter will help a lot.  http://www.taperssection.com/yabbse/index.php?topic=20129.0

Matt

[pfife]

I do this a lot on my matrix recordings, especially when the engineer and I are doing the dualing levels thing on the first song or two.  You can make a smal amplitude change in the middle of a song if you end it on an impact of the next passage... like a snare hit or the start of a loud guitar rif, and it wioll go mostly unnoticed.  Otherwise I sometimes bring the levels up in a section and then do a long fadeout/in back down/up to the level of where my adjusted section ends.  In most programs you can adjust the end of the fade to be more than zero, and this will allow you to play with levels a bit.
     Best is to not have aproblem in the first place, and a svu meeter will help a lot.  http://www.taperssection.com/yabbse/index.php?topic=20129.0

Matt

Yeah man, I've wanted an SVU, but I've been contemplating saving for a v3, so it would be counterproductive to purchase one if I am going to be purchasing one of those...

[mmmatt]

I do this a lot on my matrix recordings, especially when the engineer and I are doing the dualing levels thing on the first song or two.  You can make a smal amplitude change in the middle of a song if you end it on an impact of the next passage... like a snare hit or the start of a loud guitar rif, and it wioll go mostly unnoticed.  Otherwise I sometimes bring the levels up in a section and then do a long fadeout/in back down/up to the level of where my adjusted section ends.  In most programs you can adjust the end of the fade to be more than zero, and this will allow you to play with levels a bit.
     Best is to not have aproblem in the first place, and a svu meeter will help a lot.  http://www.taperssection.com/yabbse/index.php?topic=20129.0

Matt

I don't know... they are getting rather popular with ua-5 & jb3 owners.  I bet you could dump it real close to what you paid.  Maybe take a 10-$20 hit.  Good luck though.

Matt

Yeah man, I've wanted an SVU, but I've been contemplating saving for a v3, so it would be counterproductive to purchase one if I am going to be purchasing one of those...

[bagtagsell]

I am having the same problems.  I taped MMW last week, no opener, I just had to guess.  THe show opens with Martin just barely tapping away...Crap levels WAY too low.  Change them.  3 min later uber loud groove, change them again.  I'm not comfortable with the levels until the middle of the first set.  I haven't even attempted to master this one yet.  Your comments gave me at least something to start with.

UA-5 levels way to finicky (my biggest complaint)

[pfife]

I am having the same problems.  I taped MMW last week, no opener, I just had to guess.  THe show opens with Martin just barely tapping away...Crap levels WAY too low.  Change them.  3 min later uber loud groove, change them again.  I'm not comfortable with the levels until the middle of the first set.  I haven't even attempted to master this one yet.  Your comments gave me at least something to start with.

UA-5 levels way to finicky (my biggest complaint)

Especially when you have the levels set pretty high already.

I've had no luck trying to smooth them out.  I am thinking about trying to copy over one channel onto the other and making a mono tape at parts that I think are bad.

Either that or just dealing with it.  Mine is still an enjoyable recording.

[ChrisV]

Yeah, I've had some of the same problems with UA-5 getting the levels right.   

Too bad there wasn't some way for you to adjust the gain on both channels at the same time in incriments of 1 db once you have the 2 channels equal it'd be so much easier.

Or at least have there be notches on the dials so you can visually incriment them the same amount.

[leegeddy]

i would apply an amplitude envelope.

let's say you turned down the level where the arrow is:



i highlighted the portion of the wave to apply the envelope:



envelope window is shown:



adjusted resultant wave:



the sample i adjusted was a quick and dirty work, but you can get an idea how to use Amplitude Envelope in smoothing out level adjustments.

marc

[mmmatt]

Yeah, I've had some of the same problems with UA-5 getting the levels right.   

Too bad there wasn't some way for you to adjust the gain on both channels at the same time in incriments of 1 db once you have the 2 channels equal it'd be so much easier.

Or at least have there be notches on the dials so you can visually incriment them the same amount.

Since I've had my ua-5 I've had 3 different sets of mics.  The first were rode nt-5's and they are a VERY hot signal.  I usually had my levels set around 10 o'clock and they were easy to manipulate, after that was akg 391's and they have a low output.  My dial with thoes was usually at about 2 o'clock and extreemly touchy.  Now I have SP c-4's and they are a little hotter than the AKG's but still pretty touchy.  From my experience the higher the knobs are up, the more touchy the levels are.  However, with an outboard meter and a semi-sober hand it is easy to adjust.
     In this regard a mic with a hotter output is a better match for the ua-5.  I really don't like the touchy knobs, and having a ballance knob and a gain knob would be a better scenario IMO.

Matt

[mmmatt]

that's cool mark... I do that all manually.  I never new there was such a function!  I wonder if wavelab has that as well.  I think I'll try that next time if I can do it with my software.

Matt

[leegeddy]

that's cool mark... I do that all manually.  I never new there was such a function!  I wonder if wavelab has that as well.  I think I'll try that next time if I can do it with my software.

Matt

matt;

for the easy ones, i use the Envelope function, but for the tricky ones, i also do it manually.

marc