ADJUST VOLUME ON CERTAIN PORTIONS OF A VOICE RECORDING

Audacity 3 Help Forum Windows
1

VERSION 2.1.1
I RECORDED AN INTERVIEW ON MY SPEAKER PHONE AND NEED TO ADJUST MY VOICE ONLY AS IT IS TOO LOUD. CAN I SELECT CERTAIN PORTIONS OF A VOICE RECORDING AND MAKE THE VOICE SOFTER? THANKS :smiley:

2

YES, AND YOU CAN START BY NOT SHOUTING IN THE FORUM!!!

Most people complain that the guest is too low rather than the interviewer is too loud. While the show is on the Audacity timeline, drag-select your voice segments one at a time and reduce their volume using tools such as Normalize or Amplify. Amplify will allow you to assign a reduction value.

Change the volume by -4dB, for example, to reduce volume. You’ll get a feel for what the numbers mean and you can always UNDO.

You can also use the envelope tool, two white arrows and bent blue line. That gives you a rubber band over the track that you can mouse up and down to change the volume note by note if you need to.

http://manual.audacityteam.org/o/man/envelope_tool.html

These tools stop working if you like to talk over the guest. That is a super bad idea.

Koz

3

Thank you - very much appreciated! :stuck_out_tongue:

4

That’s what I’ve been doing with some talk-show audios. Callers can be 7 dB too low in some cases, so I select those segments, hit Z for Zero crossing, hit Alt+A and type in a dB value. While doing that, might as well do a Ctrl+B and add a Track Label for those segments, such as “Henry”, the caller’s name. IOW, if you’re going to the trouble of selecting and amplifying a party’s voice spots, might as well label 'em.

-Ed

5

Just to note that ALT + A is probably a shortcut for Amplify that Edwinn added in Keyboard Preferences.

Otherwise, keyboard access to Amplify would be ALT + C, A, ENTER.


Gale

6

Yes, thanks for clarifying.

The thinking behind adding that shortcut was; SILENCE has a shortcut Alt+S, so then AMPLIFY now has a shortcut Alt+A right next to it. :wink:

Would like to re-emphasize the tip: If you’re going to select a caller or talker and amplify, then consider doing a Ctrl+B and typing the person’s name as a LABEL (while the segment is selected.) For example: Select, then Ctrl+B, then type “Frank”, Enter.

Slick huh?

-Ed