Audacity Forum

Ok So i recorded some video clips from a concert i went to and the base is just a little too much. its not terribly bad but just a little too much. i exported the audio file from the video and loaded it into audacity. i'm just a real beginner with audacity right now and i'm not sure what to manipulate within the program. if anyone could help me i would really appreciate it. thank you very much Mike.

There are other ways to do it, but you'll probably want Effects -> Equalizer. Make sure you highlight the whole signal first.

You'll need to 'draw' the kind of equalizer (EQ) curve you want to use. A typical bass cut looks something like this:
The * is the point called the 'knee' of the curve. It's impossible for me to say where you should put this or how much lower the bass should be, but start with a value of about 200 dB and drop the bass portion down about 6dB. Also, be sure to lower the bass part, as opposed to raising the rest of it. That way you'll avoid clipping.

And don't expect miracles, there are limits to what you can do with EQ (and post-processing in general).

here is a link to the file that i am trying to fix. maybe hearing this could make it easier for you guys to give me better directions.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mZnYhrr18Lw



thank you so much

The bad news is I don't think you can recover the sound track.

I don't hear "straight" bass being too loud. I hear severe distortion either caused by the microphone overloading or the electronics right behind the microphone biting the big one. That's the clicking and pumping sound during the bass notes.

That's also where the music vanishes for a split second.

Standing in front of a band with a camcorder is rough to do and get a good track. You're talking tiny metal elements inside the microphone with the strength of tissue paper being exposed to performance sound loud enough to make people my age ill.

A lot of us listen to the camcorder on thick headphones during the performance to avoid problems like this.

Sorry. I thought the band was cool.

Koz

I agree with Koz, there is no useful audio information in that clip once the whole band starts playing.

so my camcorder is able to have an attachable microphone that is of higher quality. the only problem is that they are like $100 do you think that might help the sound quality?

You're after the Quick Fix and there may not be one. I said either the microphone or the electronics may be overloading and it's really difficult to tell which one. If you change the microphone and the microphone preamplifier is in trouble, you haven't gained anything.

Can you borrow an external microphone to try it out? I know we have shot bands before with our Canon XL1 camera, but that one has audio level meters, switchable input attenuators (to record bands), and manual controls, and it wasn't cheap.

Ask the band. No band I ever met could get through life without at least one Shure SM-58 microphone in the bag somewhere. You need to tell me how the external microphone connects to the camcorder. 1/8 inch jack that looks like a headphone plug? A lot of camcorders work like that. Or give me the model number of the camcorder and I'll tell you.

Koz