I’m new to this, so- please help! I have Windows 7 OS, Audacity 2.0, installed from .exe (if I remember correctly). I’ve voiced thousands of radio/tv spots, in professional studios, but this is the first time I’m using Audacity. I want to use Audacity to work from home and when I travel, to record commercials. I have already recorded my voiceover (for a soon-to-be finished practice radio commercial). Now- I want to marry my voice to the commercial jingle. I have the jingle in both .wav .mp3 formats, saved on my desktop. I have re-imported my voice track to Audacity. I also have imported the :30 jingle to Audacity (I’ve tried both the .wav and .mp3 formats) in my attempts to-date.
When I hit Play, my voice track and the commercial jingle play simultaneously…as I want…and the jingle “bed”** is the correct level (as it is imported), BUT- how do I increase the volume of the jingle toward the end, at the last :05, so the waveform is the same height as my voice track? There is a :25 “bed,” over which I lay my voice track…then, at :25, the “sing-out”*** takes the commercial out, to the end. However, the volume level of the jingle is constant (the same as it is, when it is imported)…there doesn’t appear to be a way to increase it at the :25 mark.
I have attached a screen shot. The voice track is on top, jingle bed is the two tracks on the bottom. Ignore the fact that the voiceover track is short…I’m just experimenting, now. You can see the differences in the waveforms. How do I do this? Please help. Thank you, sooo much!
**A bed in a commercial jingle is a section of instrumental music that has no vocals.
*** A sing-out is when a commercial jingle concludes with singing.
Use the Amplify effect (Effect menu) to increase the volume of all of track 2 (the jingle). Just use the default setting in the Amplify effect for this.
The track will now be too loud, so use the Envelope Tool to reduce the level as required: http://manual.audacityteam.org/manual/help/manual/man/envelope_tool.html
Tip: during “production”, avoid MP3 or other “lossy” formats. Stick with WAV format throughout. If you need MP3 for the final result, export as MP3 right at the end, but always work with high quality uncompressed formats.
Thank you, Steve…but- when I click on the Track Control Panel (to the left of the bottom, jingle, track…thus, selecting the track), then click on Effect and Amplify…I get a new, small “Amplify” window. (I have attached a screen shot of it…labeled Shot #1.)
If I slide the Amplification button to the right, the “OK” button grays-out (?). How do I amplfy that particular track, as you told me to do?
I await your (or anyone else’s) answer. Thank you again.
Just click OK. Don’t touch the slider, use the default values. They are computed to give the loudest possible level without causing clipping.
The OK button greys out if the New Peak Amplitude goes above 0 dB. 0 dB is the absolute maximum level in the digital signal, amplifying to levels above 0 db will cause clipping, i.e. the peaks will be cut off resulting in horrible distortion.
If you are willing to accept such clipping distortion, you have to explicitly allow that by checking “Allow clipping”.
Just to reinforce this point - Normally you would want to avoid clipping. The OK button greys out to prevent accidental clipping.
The Amplify effect (in your picture) shows that it can amplify by 9.1 dB and that will bring the level up so that the maximum peak(s) in the track touch the top or bottom of the track (0 dB).
