any ideas on how to increase volume w/out distortion?

[kozikowski]

This may be another problem. Do you like head-banging, soul crushing, audible down the block, screaming rock music? Those CDs and songs are very highly processed for effect, not to be faithful to the original instruments. It's not unusual for someone to capture some of their own live music work and are horrified about the volume difference. There's a lot of work that goes into a "loud" CD.

Koz

[tommytones]

A very easy way to get a high-quality volume boost is Chris's Compressor.

is that the compressor in audacity?

[kozikowski]

No. It's an external package that Chris wrote with Audacity plugins in mind.

Just a note, if you're going to be a purist and insist on no distortion, then what you have right now is a good as it gets. All compression, volume management, and "thickening" of the sound creates distortion. The trick is to make it sound good and loud. That's the trick behind Chris. He started out with a musical goal (opera, as I recall) and kept tuning the software until he couldn't tell musically that it was working. The tools inside Audacity are arithmetic processors. They started out with a mathematical goal and it's up to you to make sure there is no musical damage after you applied them.

Koz

[tommytones]

very interesting,
thanks!!! That's kinda what I'm going for Being as Chris had opera in mind, it definately applies to my goal!