Audacity Forum

Two questions.
1. I recorded as recommended on level not exceeding 0.5 waveform- and after recording a few trakcs the sum gives me a clip- I mean it's distorted ( there's 6 tracks, none exceding 0.5, and there's distortion)
2. It seems to be quite quiet when i record up to this level, is it normal?

0.5 on the vertical scale represents -6dB, so for live recording that is a very acceptable level.
If it sounds noticeably quiet, you may need to adjust the controls in the "Windows Mixer" (look for a loudspeaker icon near the computer clock and right click on it - some sound cards use a custom control panel instead of the Windows Mixer).

When you mix multiple tracks together, then as you describe, they are "summed" and so the peaks are likely to go higher. Use the track volume sliders to adjust the levels and keep an eye on the level meter. To make it easier, grab the left edge of the meter toolbar with your mouse and drag it out from its docking position. Then grab the right edge and stretch it out. You can stretch it to full screen size, then return it to a docking postion.

While you are recording and mixing, it is likely (and normal) that the overall volume will sound a bit low, so you need to compensate for that using the Windows Mixer and/or your speaker/headphone volume. When you have all the tracks mixed, you can Amplify/Normalize up to zero dB (probably best a little below zero, say -0.1dB). Commercial recordings use dynamic compression and limiters so that the average sound level can be increased without the peaks going through the roof. A simple tool that will do this is the "leveller". There are also plug-ins available for dynamic compression and peak limiting. One plug-in that I like a lot is "Chris's Dynamic Compressor".

About compressors and limiters:
I record drums using yamaha keyboard and record them manually (I mean i hit keys with snare/kick, cymbals etc)
, so then obviously the volume of beats is not the same.
i would like to even it out and found compressor in Audacity not useful, because when i look at waveform it doesnt cut the very first milisecond of beat- instead I found useful so called Hard limiter.

My question is- is limiting damaging the sound?
I limited with this hard limited quite hard, I mean with peak around -15dB with average peaks before limiting about -9dB, so it cut sharply, the look of waveform changed to "cut tops" triangles but the sound as well- especially the kick.

How to find a good balance?

oles wrote: My question is- is limiting damaging the sound?

Short answer is YES. All forms of compression/limiting "damage" the sound in the sense that it resembles the original recording less closely than it did before. However, that is not to say that it is "bad". I regularly use hard limiting on drums not only to compress the dynamics, but because I like the sound.

Compressors tend to do less damage to the frequency content than limiters because they retain the shape of individual waves (changing the gain gradually over many milliseconds or more), whereas limiters will often squash the tops of individual wave peaks, thus changing the frequency content.

The built in compressor in Audacity is both fairly simple, and fairly conventional. When a sudden peak in encountered, the gain adjustment will take a certain length of time (the attack time) to catch up with the new level. Some compressors are able to look ahead (into the future) and see what peaks are on their way and start to make the gain adjustments in advance. With this latter type of compressor, you can catch the sudden transients without resorting to hard limiting.

For evening out the level, Audacity 1.3 now includes an effect called "leveller". Also there is a more sophisticated version of this available as a plug-in called "Chris's dynamic Compressor".

Try them all, and use whichever produces the sound that you like.