Reducing beat volume

Hi,

I am trying to mix and MP3 with another song, but the beat on the track is too loud - I would like to soften it and enhance the vocals.

Is this possible?

I am using version 2.1.3

Thanks,

Stephen

Try some [u]Equalization[/u]. The low frequencies (bass) are the left and higher frequencies on the right. The main “voice-frequencies” are on the lower-side around 200-400Hz, except for “T” and “S” sounds that are mainly around 3000-6000Hz (or higher).

I like the Graphic EQ mode when “experimenting”.

There is a LOT of frequency overlap in music (or any real/natural sounds) so you can’t really isolate the kick drum or bass guitar, but with EQ you can make a difference.

The Limiter effect (set to Hard limit) may also help if the bass/beat dominates. (Limiting is a kind of dynamic compression* and it tends to push everything toward the same-constant volume.)

If one of the tracks is too loud compared to the other use the Amplify effect with a negative dB value to bring-down the volume.

Of course, it’s best to “process” the tracks separately before mixing.

Mixing is done by summation (addition), so in order to prevent clipping (distortion) you’ll probably have to reduce the volume of both tracks (by about -6dB) before mixing. Or, you can Amplify (with the default setting) or Normalize after mixing, but before exporting. If you mix more than two tracks, you’ll have to reduce the volumes more.


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I am trying to mix and MP3 with another song,

As you may know, MP3 is lossy compression (data is thrown-away during compression) so if possible you should avoid using MP3 in “audio production”. Ideally, if you want MP3 you should compress ONCE to MP3 as the last step after all editing/processing. If you are stuck with MP3 originals, try to minimize the number of times you re-compress.

When you open an MP3 in Audacity (or any “normal” audio editor) it gets decompressed.** If you then re-export to MP3 (or other lossy format) you’re going through another generation of lossy compression.

MP3 isn’t necessarily “terrible” and it often sounds identical to the uncompressed original. But it IS lossy, and the quality-loss accumulates with multiple generations of compression.


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  • Don’t confuse dynamic compression with file compression (like MP3). They are totally unrelated.

** No further damage is done during decompression. The damage is done during compression when data is thrown-away to make the file smaller.

IMO a multi-band compressor set to compress the bass-frequencies only would do a better job than a limiter at cutting a thumping bass …
Bass compression using G-Multi in Audacity 2-1-3 , (only band1 in use).gif.gif