RECORDING LOW BACKGROUND MUSIC W/ VOICE

[billw58]

Anna:
There was nothing wrong with your post. I think it's just that no-one here knows anything about those plug-ins.

Perhaps if you started a new thread asking if anyone knows about the Digitalfishphones plug-ins you might have more success. The "Audio Processing" forum would be a good place to ask that question.

-- Bill

[cosmiclight22]

Thanks a lot for letting me know,
I am glad I did not cause any problem
I did post it where you suggested

I tried to remove that post in this forum (my previous to this post) to free some space, but I cannot find the remove button, so you can remove that post if you want, thank you

I had another question that I cannot find in the tutorials
1) When I am on my way to mix the voice with music, and I choose IMPORT (to open the music file in my voice recording) do I choose : IMPORT>AUDIO? or IMPORT>RAW DATA?
I have never known which is best

2) After I have recorded my voice file in MONO and then I open (IMPORT) the music file into my project, the music file opens up as a STEREO file (two tracks), do I have to do to go to TRACKS> and apply the STEREO TO MONO feature to make it a mono? or leave it as a stereo?

Last time i did leave the music file as a STEREO, (even if my voice was MONO) then I did save the whole project as a WAV, Audacity turned the whole file into a stereo WAV, which was not so bad at all, did not sound bad......But I am not sure I am doing the right thing

3) All my background music files in my hard drive are MP3 format, for now
When I open or (IMPORT)-- the music file (which is a MP3 format) , in order to mix with the voice,
and then I mix the project , is it OK to save the whole project as a WAV, even though the original music file was in MP3 format?
Or will create distortions?, It sounds good to me, but I might be wrong

Thanks a lot
Anna

[billw58]

1) Use File > Import > Audio for all standard audio file formats such as WAV or MP3.

2) Leave the imported track as stereo. When you Export your finished show your voice will be "in the middle" and the music will be in stereo.

3) Saving as WAV is always safe. Saving as MP3 will further degrade the quality of the music, but will be necessary if you plan to post your finished show on the internet.

Also have a look at: http://manual.audacityteam.org/man/Tuto ... ound_Music

-- Bill

[cosmiclight22]

Thank you so much
It sounds great!

I have been able to, after recording very close to the mic and speaking loudly, then amplifying, then remove the noise and also apply some slight boost, to have my voice recording reach a normal , decent level, I might be wrong, but it sounds OK

But the problem I am having is this:
I have tested to mix it with music, I moved the gain of the music track all the way to the left, to -36 dB, it does not go further
But the music is still too loud compared to my voice, it is good if it is a song, but is supposed to be a guided meditation, so music has to be low, the music still covers up the sound of my voice

If I try to move the gain of the voice track to the right (in order to increase the voice track gain) then is when the loud background noise really appears now, so i cannot increase the GAIN slider of the voice track

What could I do, what effect could I apply only to the music track, to do the opposite of BOOSTING the volume, to reduce the gain to make it less loud even before I mix it with the voice?
Is there something I could do?
I did not find any information about how to do this specific step, in the narration with music tutorials
Thank you sooo ...much
Anna

[steve]

What could I do, what effect could I apply only to the music track, to do the opposite of BOOSTING the volume, to reduce the gain to make it less loud even before I mix it with the voice?

Use the "Amplify" effect, but enter a negative value.
Try amplifying the music by -20 dB (minus twenty), then use the gain slider to tweak the music volume.

I don't know Bills' opinion, but I'd probably also use a small amount of "dynamic compression" on the voice track. http://manual.audacityteam.org/man/Compressor

[cosmiclight22]

I appreciate this advise so much Steve!!!
This is exactly what I need to do, it sounds like the missing step, thank you !!! I am going to try that

I also noticed that , when I listen to the mixed voice with music file, through the PC speakers, the music sounds proportioned to the voice (much less loud and ok)
but when I listen to the mix through stereo headphones, then the music becomes more dominant and too loud over the voice
I would like to know if you think that is normal?

Thanks sooo...much
Anna

[cosmiclight22]

Hi Steve, Bill and all
Time ago I was asking you about noise removal and the steps

Now I am doing some editing again, and there are breaths, between spoken words. and also some normal zzzzz noise between words that can be easily removed

is it better to cut out the breaths and clearing of my voice between spoken parts FIRST? then applying noise removal as a 2nd step?
Or is it better to do the noise removal first, then remove all breaths ?

Or it does not matter which,?
i think I was told by some friends in the past that is best to remove breaths first then do noise removal, but I cannot remember exactly and also, I would like to ask your professional expert opinion
Thank you
Anna

[steve]

It probably won't make much difference, though when you select your "noise only" sample for the noise profile, it should not include any breathing - you want only the "zzzz" for your noise sample. If in doubt, test it both ways - depending on the actual audio it may be a bit better one way than the other.