How to increase volume and decrease the muffled sound of a recorded track

[cassettes]

I recorded a cassette and the beginning portion of the track is low and muffled. I’ve tried the recommendations for amplify and the envelope, but neither worked. . Any ideas?

I’m new to the program so I have limited knowledge.

Thank you in advance!

[Trebor]

@cassettes

muffled

Try* boost treble … https://manual.audacityteam.org/man/bass_and_treble.html

(* if there is no treble to boost, then that won’t help).

[Djard]

If the section sounds muffled, you probably have too much 400Hz bandwidth. Try the following…

1. Select the section.
2. Analyze → Plot Spectrum → drag the left and right border of the window to widen it.
3. Make a note of the dominant and weak frequencies → close the window.
4. Use the equalizer to boost the frequencies that make the sound muddy (typically 400 Hz) and boost 2kHz, 2.5kHz and 3.15kHz. You can apply the EQ more than once.
5. Amplify the section if necessary and/or add compression, which will surely boost the volume: Threshold -40dB, Noise Floor -40dB, Ratio 10:1, Attack 0.20 s, increase Release time if compression causes unwanted crescendo.

[cassettes]

Thank you so much!