Morning all! Affetr updating my Audacity software, I’ve noticed the overall playback level is down a bit. Is the best way to address that to just drag the bar across the top (with the speaker icon) to the right? And if so, does that affect input level at all…or, is there another setting in the Toolbar or somehwere else to change playback volume? (ofcourse I don’t want to distort playback audio either!). Thanks!
Yes. The playback volume slider is now “hidden” under the playback meters and the recording volume is hidden under the recording meters.
Sometimes the recording level doesn’t work with USB audio devices because if you are going to adjust the recording level it should be adjusted before the audio is digitized.
The playback volume control only affects what you’re hearing. It doesn’t change the audio data. (As you know it has no effect on the waveform.)
The volume control only goes to 100% so if the audio doesn’t go over 0dB (100%) it won’t clip (distort). Audacity itself uses floating point so it virtually has no upper or lower limits but your DAC is limited to 0dB and will clip if you go over.
Of course you shouldn’t export a file that goes over 0dB either. WAV files & CDs cant’ go over 0dB so if it goes over and you export your file will clip. And if you export to a format that can go over 0dB the listeners will clip their DAC if he play it at “full digital volume”.
Thanks for the thorough answer DVDdoug! Yah it looks like playback is already at 100% so I’ll just need to post my volume coming out of my interface if I need a little more volume boost, I guess. There is a function I saw called “Amplify”…do you ever use that. My work is VO though so I want the cleanest unprocessed audio so I want to be careful about adding anything beyond Normalization and Compression. Thanks!
YES! You should leave some “headroom” while recording so that you never accidently clip the ADC in your interface.
Pros often record very-low at around -12 to -18dB but that’s not necessary. Nothing bad happens when you get “close” to 0dB, only if you “try” to go over.
Digital amplification is lossless so it doesn’t hurt the quality unless you go over 0dB. Amplify has a check-box that says “Allow Clipping” and that should normally be left un-checked.
Audacity has pre-scanned your file and Amplify will default to whatever up or down change is needed for “maximized” 0dB peaks. Amplifying with the default is the same as (regular) normalizing.
Audacity’s Normalize effect has a couple of other options and it defaults to peaks of -1dB. (Normalization usually means 0dB peaks but that’s not how Audacity’s version defaults.)
Loudness Normalization is different. The peaks don’t correlate well with perceived loudness. You have to be careful with loudness normalization because it can push the peaks into clipping.
With limiting or compression (non-linear processes which CAN can change the sound character/quality) you can push-up the perceived loudness without clipping. (They generally work by “pushing-down” the peaks or loud parts and then make-up gain is used to make everything louder overall.)
Thank you! Have a good rest of the weekend.