Audacity Forum

I made a wonderful live recording of a band where the microphone was placed slightly too close to the drummer. You can hear the guitars, violin, flute and other instruments but the sound of the drum is a little too loud and tends to dominate.

Is there a way, perhaps a tutorial, which could show how to somehow diminish the volume of the drumbeat?

It's difficult/almost impossible to split a mixed performance into individual instruments so to make one instrument louder or softer. The people who record a rock concert with nuclear bass notes or neighbor talking on his mobile have the same problem.

You could try Effect > Compressor. That, as a fuzzy rule, knocks down loud sounds to the advantage of softer ones. It also affects the relationship between the other instruments, so it's a juggling act.

Koz

If the drum beats are louder than everything else, (brief loud peaks poking out of the envelope) they can be reduced to the same amplitude as everything else using a limiter , (which is a compressor with a very fast response time ).