Match gain levels in two files?

Audacity Help Forum Windows
1

I just bought the cd ‘What Hits!?’ by Red Hot Chili Peppers at a Goodwill store. Unfortunately, two of the tracks are pretty badly damaged. However, I also have the Chili Peppers cd ‘Freaky Styley’ on which these two tracks originally appeared. And so I thought I could take the two tracks from ‘Freaky Styley’ and replace the bad ones on ‘What Hits!?’.

My issue is that the gain/volume levels on the ‘What Hits!?’ cd are higher than those on ‘Freaky Styley’. So my question is…

Is there a way in Audacity to use one track as a ‘template’ to automatically adjust the gain/output levels on another track?

I tried to manually adjust the levels and seemed to get pretty close, but now I’m wondering if there’s a way to automatically do it.

2

As a follow-up to my question, is there a way to select an individual sample and see it’s exact gain/output level?

3

Can use the Audacity contrast-tool to measure the RMS volume of your target track.
Then use RMS normalize plugin to make other tracks a similar volume.

4

Is there a way in Audacity to use one track as a ‘template’ to automatically adjust the gain/output levels on another track?

I tried to manually adjust the levels and seemed to get pretty close, but now I’m wondering if there’s a way to automatically do it.

Your ear is probably better than the any software. :wink:

There is also a [u]ReplayGain Plug-in[/u] that you can use to check the “loudness” of the files.

Then after you know the dB difference, you can enter a negative dB value into the Amplify effect to bring-down* the too-loud tracks.



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  • In general, you have to reduce the loud tracks rather than boosting the quiet tracks because there is a “digital maximum” of 0dB, and since the peak levels don’t correlate well with perceived loudness, quiet-sounding songs are often normalized/maximized for 0dB peaks and their volume can’t be increased (linearly) without clipping (distortion).