Audacity Forum

I am presently adjusting various tracks before mixing with volume adjustment being one. I do not know enough to know when to use one vs the other

The "Amplify" effect changes the audio data, making it louder or quieter.

The "Gain" slider (on the left side of the track) does not change the actual data - it just changes how loud it plays. For this reason you can adjust it as often as you like and the original audio data is totally unchanged. When you "Mix and Render" (from the "Tracks" menu), the data is re-written at the new volume level - in effect the "gain" is applied to the data. Also, when the audio is Exported the gain level is applied.

As well as the gain slider in the Track Control Panel (left side of the track), the gain level may also be adjusted using the "Mixer Board" (View menu).

The gain/mixer board sliders are particularly useful when mixing as they can be adjusted while the audio is playing. However, you need to take care that the overall level does not go too high as this will cause distortion. Keep an eye on the "Playback Meter" while adjusting the level.

The meters may be resized by grabbing the end of the meter toolbar and dragging. It may be dragged right out of the main Audacity window, or re-docked by dragging it back in. If you resize the meters to full screen width it will be much easier to see the output level - keep it below 0 dB.

When you have a mix sounding the way you like it, you can select All of the audio (Ctrl+A) and "Mix and Render" (Tracks menu) to a single track. You can then use the "Amplify" effect to adjust the overall level (a good level for the final mix before exporting is just a little below 0 dB).

Chuck,

the other tool that might help you is the envelope tool. This gives you variable control over the volume in any track by ising an "envelope" that you can manipulate. See this page from the 1.3 manual: http://manual.audacityteam.org/index.ph ... elope_Tool

BTW I'm fascinated by your Beatles remix project, admirably ambitious for an Audacity starter project. Some of those early Beatles "stereo" mixes sound really bad on headphones (they can even sound odd on a decent hi-fi which delivers a good solid stereo image!). Do let us know how you get on.

WC

Thanks for all of the good information. This remix is a learning experience (still learning) that I have enjoyed for I will finally be able to listen to the songs as I have heard it in my head for years.

From reading Steve's information, gain should be used get the needed volume for a given track before mixing rather than amplify before mixing?

Hello Waxcylinder, where would be a good place to post an on-going status of the remix? Once I have finished "Please Please Me" will complete the rest of the first album

cfmoore1 wrote:Hello Waxcylinder, where would be a good place to post an on-going status of the remix? Once I have finished "Please Please Me" will complete the rest of the first album

I would suggest posting it in the Audio Processing - it should make a good case-study (if it ends up being a good case study it would probably be worth posting in the Wiki as a tutorial).

A Beatles project that I worked on last year for myself was to make alternative versions of the albums, substituting in where available alternative versions of songs from the Beatles Anthology and Love CDs. A bit of Audacity work was needed to separate out some of the the songs. But I now have an alternate set each of the CDs wit an interesting mix of the "normal" tracks with the "alternative" ones coming in from time to time to give your listening a little jolt.

WC

cfmoore1 wrote:From reading Steve's information, gain should be used get the needed volume for a given track before mixing rather than amplify before mixing?

I do a lot of mixing, and use a combination of both methods.

For example, if the source material is close to 0 dB and I'm going to use multiple layers, the first thing that I'll want to do is to reduce the level of all of the sounds so as to avoid clipping distortion when they are mixed together. To do this, I'll press Ctrl+A (select All) then Amplify by a negative amount (say -6 dB).
If I have two long(ish) sections and I want to match the level of one to the level of the other, I'll generally use the gain slider so that I can adjust it while it is playing.

If the bit depth of the tracks is 32 bit (look in the "track info" in the "Track Control Panel" on the left side of the track) then Amplification can be used with almost perfect accuracy, so there is no perceivable loss in sound quality.

Another important difference between the "gain" slider and the "Amplify" effect is that the gain slider affects the entire track, whereas the Amplify effect will be applied to whatever is selected (which may be just part of a track, or parts of several tracks or all of a track or all of several tracks).