I just installed Audacity and found that an imported audio file opens with the top channel about 2db louder than the bottom channel. This happens with each new file that I import. Even the silence preceding sound is thicker than it should be. The file types are mp3. Any suggestions would be appreciated.
I believe the Normalize effect will fix that with the proper checkboxes selected. There are others that probably know more about it then I do.
It’s not Audacity, it’s the MP3s.
Some variation between left & right is normal. Otherwise it wouldn’t be stereo. But overall, they should “balance” and centered sounds (lead vocals, etc.) should sound like they are coming from the center.
If one side is consistently louder than the other that’s usually caused by an analog problem during recording.
Try the Normalize effect (the regular Normalize effect, not Loudness Normalization) and select Normalize Stereo Channels Independently.
That will make the peaks equal and hopefully it will sound balanced.
If it doesn’t sound balanced after that, you can split the stereo track and run Loudness Normalize separately on each channel, then run regular Normalize again but not independently this time.
Thank you for the suggestion. Normalize did make an improvement, but did not bring the level down as I had hoped. I tried importing other files that I have already reviewed and compiled and they also came in with a higher than zero level in the pre sound region. The files were known to have zero amplification in that region. I was using windows 10 prior to this, so maybe some difference between 10 and windows 11 version.
I have installed a different version of Audacity and the issue is resolved. Imported files are now correct.