Audacity Forum

And please note that no matter what you do, you are remixing the character of the song and it's not going to sound the same. Louder and desirable, yes, but not the same. It's not like turning the volume control up. When I simulate the sound of the local NPR FM station, I use settings the the elves generated where I increase the compression from 0.5 to 0.77 and leave all the rest of the setting alone.

Chris rejiggered his control panels a bit ago and I haven't used it since then.

You are using a fully produced sample of a commercial mix as an example. What you really need for a good comparison is to hear the commercial mix before they messed with it.

Koz

kozikowski wrote:And please note that no matter what you do, you are remixing the character of the song and it's not going to sound the same. Louder and desirable, yes, but not the same. It's not like turning the volume control up. When I simulate the sound of the local NPR FM station, I use settings the the elves generated where I increase the compression from 0.5 to 0.77 and leave all the rest of the setting alone.

Well this is what I am trying to achieve - is to get something which is as faithful to the original sound as possible but which can actually be heard. Chris' compressor just isn't doing it. I've tried it with the default settings, I've tried it with the .77 ratio, and I've tried it with various other settings. It messes up the frequency response in all of these cases and completely changes in some cases what instruments in the mix I can even hear.

You are using a fully produced sample of a commercial mix as an example. What you really need for a good comparison is to hear the commercial mix before they messed with it.

Koz

I suppose this is true, but all I am trying to see from the example is that how much headroom they left, what amplitude looks like, etc., relative to what I'm working on. I'd expect recordings of similar instruments both of which are at -3 dB to sound just as loud as one another. When I listen to some violins in one mix with the amplitude hovering around -3 dB and then some violins in another mix with an amplitude also hovering around -3dB, but one sounds twice as loud as the other, I wonder, gee, what makes this one sound louder, and how can I achieve that?

There's a few different version of Chris's dynamics compressor floating around. Could you post a screen-shot of the version that you are using.

Did we ever find out the particulars of your system? I don't recall it. Windows? Which one? What are you using to burn the CD? Which program and what are the settings? I recall a setting in iTunes where you can set automatic level compensation where it tries to set the volume for you.

Over on Windows, you have another interesting problem. Modern Windows machines have audio conference settings which will try to set sound levels for you -- whether you want them to or not.


We are now in the position of trying to describe how blue something is, you probably should post actual music.

Select about five seconds of those violins in your example, Tracks > Stereo Track to Mono, and export as FLAC with default settings. Attach both files, one good, one bad to your next post. See the bottom of the text entry page: "Upload Attachment."

Koz

There's a few different version of Chris's dynamics compressor floating around. Could you post a screen-shot of the version that you are using.

I think we may be dealing with something different than just compression. Let's see what the sound samples are like.

Koz

I'll get a file up once I am back with the computer that has the recordings.

As far as the system, it's Windows 7 x64 running on a quad core 2.8 GHz AMD processor, 10GB RAM, 7200 rpm HD. It's only using the stock realtek soundcard right now (which I will be upgrading after Christmas), but it sounds fine playing back through the system. It's dealing with trying to export that audio so I can burn it to a CD, put an MP3 on the internet, etc. that is a problem. I'm working with wave files right now, of course. Once I have it right I'll make an MP3 out of it for internet distribution.

Ummmm. I think I got lost there. It's only during Export that the problems manifest? How do you know that the waveforms are the same between similar performances of loud and soft songs?

I'll get a file up once I am back with the computer

Two files. The good one and the bad one.

Koz

I'm sorry, I'm not sure whether I understand your question.

Let me just explain in greater detail what I am doing, and if that doesn't give you the information you need, ask me whatever else you need.

I am creating audio files with orchestral sample libraries (mainly East West's Symphonic Orchestra). This is done in a notation program. When I play this back in the program, it sounds fine. I then have the Notation program then bounce the audio to a wave file, which I open up in Audacity to prepare and, for the internet version, export as an MP3. If I just take that wave file and listen to it on some audio system (stereo, car, etc.), it sounds too soft, and so I have been trying to amplify it, compress it, or do whatever processing is required to boost the loudness to an acceptable level (I'm not looking for modern "radio-ready" levels here, just ones I can hear with reasonable clarity without having to turn the stereo up 3/4 of the way or more).

Now, as I began to attempt this and found that I could never quite get the loudness that I felt I should, I wanted to look at something similar which I thought had appropriate levels to see what they had done to it: was it so compressed that the entire waveform looked like a solid bar, as I've often found with pop music? What was the peak level that that was used in that recording? Thus, I took some files I had imported from the Apollo 13 soundtrack, from one of the Star Wars soundtracks, etc. What I found was that they looked relatively uncompressed (though I am sure something was done to them), and that the peak level in those tracks was about -4 to - 6 dB. I also was surprised that if I took a section from my file with peak level of 0, it would sound at best as loud and at worst less loud than the imported tracks.

I understand the amount of processing that has probably gone into these tracks, I just don't understand why exactly similar instrument sounds/frequency ranges at greater levels in one file don't sound as loud as those at lesser levels in another file.

If I just take that wave file and listen to it on some audio system (stereo, car, etc.), it sounds too soft,

Missed a lot of steps there. How are you getting a WAV file to play in your car?

Koz