Fixing variable sound level (DJ Mix)

[DJCraft]

With a DJ mix where some songs are louder than others and also some songs that are too loud but adjusted (during recording), what would be the best way to even this out?

Full Project


I've tried zooming in and normalizing (no dc offset, -6 dB sometimes) as picture below, but I can spend hours on this but there's not much effect on an 80 minute project.

Pre-Normalized


Normalized


I've thought about normalizing to +6 to get rid of the peaks but that sounds like it will just cut the peaks out and make them clip.

[kozikowski]

Actually, Normalize won't clip unless you insist that it does. Normalize is a global volume control. Everything goes up or everything goes down. Audicity's version of Normalize affects left and right differently, so it can create more problems than it solves.

You want one of the compressors. The volume compressors, not the digital compressors like MP3. Those are the tools that can change the characteristics of a show depending on loudness.

If you aren't using Audacity 1.3.6, you should be. The effects and tools are much better than they were were in 1.2.

I'm looking for a good compressor to simulate a radio station. No luck yet (they pay multiple thousand$ for theirs) but I did see a multi-band compressor in 1.3.6 that I really want to mess with. Properly adjusted, those things can eliminate bass tone pumping which a simple, single compressor can do by accident.

Koz

[steve]

There is a new version of Chris Capel's Dynamic Compressor available here: http://pdf23ds.net
It works superbly well on Classical music and should also work well with other types of music.

[DJCraft]

This is what it looks like after using the compress dynamics (with the default settings). I haven't had a listen yet but I'll post back once I have to see how it sounds.



It looks like it created a few peaks. Are there recommended settings to prevent this?

What I'm wanting to do is bring down the loudest parts of the project and then normalize to bring everything up as a whole automatically (which I was doing by hand).

[steve]

I haven't had a listen yet ...

That is what it is all about.

It looks like it created a few peaks. Are there recommended settings to prevent this?

Music is supposed to have peaks - it is only the recent fashion for compressing the life out of music that has produced music without peaks. Have a read of this article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loudness_war

If after that you still want to squeeze a bit more volume into your recording, then you will need to use a "limiter" after using the compression. There is a plug-in called "fast lookahead limiter" (which I believe is included in the plug-in pack on the main Audacity web-site) that will do that.

[kozikowski]

<<<There is a plug-in called "fast lookahead limiter" (which I believe is included in the plug-in pack on the main Audacity web-site) that will do that.>>>

Ooooo. This is me writing that down. That could be part of the answer to this...

http://audacityteam.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=15&t=8116

Koz

[DJCraft]

I've listened to it now and it seems like the highs were amplified, the mids were a bit muddy and the lowend was amplified but sounds a bit square. Also it seems like a lot of the pops and clicks on the vinyl were amplified. Are there any recommended settings for this compressor? Are there any other look-ahead compressor/limiter recommended?

[steve]

The other dynamics compressor that I use is "SC4". I think it's one of Steve Harris's collection.

I'm now looking at your original question...

With a DJ mix where some songs are louder than others and also some songs that are too loud but adjusted (during recording), what would be the best way to even this out?

So this is a DJ mix that you made?

It's probably too late now for this particular mix. The method you need to use is to keep each song on its own track and adjust the level of each track (you can use the volume slider on the track) so that they sound the same loudness. Do not worry about it being as loud as possible, or if one track "looks" louder than another, at this stage you should only be concerned with how it sounds.

When the tracks are perfectly balanced, save the project - if you are using 1.3.5 or later you will be prompted to choose whether to save all the audio files in the project, to which you should choose "Yes - safest".

Then close Audacity (this will release RAM memory and delete unused temp files).

Then Open the project in Audacity and save it again with a new name (the first saved project is now a backup that you can go back to if necessary).

Now Mix the tracks together, and only then should you be looking at maximising the volume.

[DJCraft]

The other dynamics compressor that I use is "SC4". I think it's one of Steve Harris's collection.

Is a dynamic compressor the same as a look-ahead compressor?

I'm now looking at your original question...

With a DJ mix where some songs are louder than others and also some songs that are too loud but adjusted (during recording), what would be the best way to even this out?

So this is a DJ mix that you made?

It's probably too late now for this particular mix. The method you need to use is to keep each song on its own track and adjust the level of each track (you can use the volume slider on the track) so that they sound the same loudness. Do not worry about it being as loud as possible, or if one track "looks" louder than another, at this stage you should only be concerned with how it sounds.

When the tracks are perfectly balanced, save the project - if you are using 1.3.5 or later you will be prompted to choose whether to save all the audio files in the project, to which you should choose "Yes - safest".

Then close Audacity (this will release RAM memory and delete unused temp files).

Then Open the project in Audacity and save it again with a new name (the first saved project is now a backup that you can go back to if necessary).

Now Mix the tracks together, and only then should you be looking at maximising the volume.

It's a live mix so this isn't going to work. I have a number of mixes that have already been recorded so I'm looking for something that can run on them. The compressor I used did make everything a bit more consistent but I don't want to amplify pop/clicks

[steve]

"look ahead" has slightly different meanings depending on whether you are talking about compressors or limiters.
The collective term for all of these kind of effects is "dynamic processor", in that they adjust (process) the dynamics (changes in amplitude/volume) in one way or another.

Compressors will operate over relatively long time periods and adjust the output level of a signal so that the average level does not go up and down as much as the input level. In other words, the range of loud to quiet of the music is reduced (compressed) so that it is more even. There are many variations on this idea, and many compressors offer a whole load of adjustments so that the sound engineer can tailor the effect to suit their needs. The most common adjustments are attack and decay times and the compression ratio. Learning to use compressors effectively requires a bit of research and a lot of practice.

Limiters generally operate over much shorter time periods - the easiest type to understand is the "brick wall limiter". This effect gets its name from the idea that it creates an immovable barrier to prevent the signal from going above a set "limit". It is similar to "clipping" except that the distortion that it introduces is more gentle (it rounds off the clipped peaks rather than clipping them flat) and so is less obtrusive.

"Look-ahead" with compressors is when the compressor will look to see what signal is coming and will start to compress the signal in advance of the rise in amplitude of the incoming signal. This does not necessarily mean that output peaks will never exceed a particular level (that's what brick wall limiters do), but it means that the reduction in volume will begin before the arrival of an increased input level.

It's a live mix so this isn't going to work.

In that case it will probably be best to use the envelope tool to adjust the volume of each section so that each song is at the appropriate level. http://audacityteam.org/manual/index.ph ... elope_Tool

When you have done that, Mix and Render the track, then Normalize to -1 dB, then use the fast lookahead limiter with a boost of around 3 to 6 dB and a maximum level of -0.3 dB (figures are approximate, but I think this is the sort of thing that you are looking for.)