Matching audio levels on tracks

Windows.

New to podcasting and recording. So be gentle.

I’m working with 3 tracks: intro, main podcast, outro. I can’t get the audio level to match. What am I doing wrong? How can I fix this problem?

Thanks.

You have them as three separate WAV files. or you have them as three separate tracks in the same Audacity Project, or you mean something else?

I’ve tried it both ways.

OK, just wanting to make sure that we are starting on the same page :wink:

  • Start with a new Audacity project.
  • “File menu > Save As” and give it a unique name, somewhere on your system where you have plenty of free space and full read/write access.
  • Import the three files. They will appear one above the other in the new project.
  • Ctrl+A (Select All) and apply the “Normalize” effect and normalize to -1 dB.
  • Use the Time Shift tool to slide the tracks left/right as necessary so that they are in the correct order. You may want to use the Zoom tools so that you can see what you are doing: http://manual.audacityteam.org/o/man/zooming.html
  • Find which is the quietest of the three tracks. You will adjust the volume of the other two to match this track.
  • Use the “Gain Sliders” on the left end of tracks to adjust the playback level. Note that the Gain slider on the quietest track should stay at its default “0” position ( http://manual.audacityteam.org/o/man/audio_tracks.html#gain )
  • Export to create a new mix - ensure that you give it a new and unique name.

Thanks Steve. I’ll try that once I get off work.