I have recorded all the chapters of my new book. When listening to it, I have noticed that there are different levels of volume between different chapters. How could I, in an easy way, change so that all the chapters have the same volume? I do not want to record them all again. Hoping for a helpful reply. I am a novice on this.
Well… By-ear it’s pretty easy…
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Run the Amplify Effect on all of the chapters/sections and just accept the default. This will normalize/maximize files for 0dB peaks. (They will all have the same peaks but they probably won’t sound equally-loud.)
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Listen to them all and if there’s a difference choose the quietest-sounding one as your reference.
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Run Amplify again on the louder tracks and enter a negative dB amplification (attenuation) to match your reference (by ear).
If you want to boost or attenuate smaller selections you can fade-up or fade-down with the [u]Envelope Tool[/u]. (It is usually best to “fade” rather than making sudden adjustments.)
But if you are going to publish the book you’ll need to get familiar with the ACX requirements and the [u]ACX Check plug-in[/u].
This gets a little complicated so I’ll just give you some background to get you started…
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The RMS level is a kind of average and it correlates well with perceived loudness.
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The peak level does not correlate well with loudness. (The “digital maximum” is 0dB, but ACX wants you to keep the peaks below that.)
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When you amplify or attenuate (linearly) The peaks and RMS change by the same amount… If you attenuate by -3dB, the peaks and RMS will both drop by 3dB. This causes lots of frustration when trying to get both the peak & RMS levels in spec.
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Compression and/or limiting can be used to bring the peak & RMS closer together. But, since these techniques are normally used to bring-up the quiet parts, they also bring-up the background noise level.
What he said.
If you publish with ACX, they have some stiff requirements for sound quality. If you’re doing it as a free-wheeling podcast, then close is usually pretty good.
Let us know.
Koz