Audacity Forum

Hello =-)!
I'm new here to these forums and to Audacity.
All I'm wanting is to do is quiet down an audio file. I just want to "mute" it down to say 15% or 30% its original loudness. So that when I render it out it's MUCH more quiet then it was originally. (Or for my voice recordings more LOUD.)
(I have a free Video Editor called OpenShot, that does not allow me to quiet down anything. I'm forced to try and use Audio Editors, and so far I have found NONE that will allow me to do this one simple thing. =-/! )

I have a lot of Youtube/Free music that I want to use for my background sounds for my videos but I have been unable to use it because my video editor will not allow me to have my audio be anything but completely Silent/(truly) Mute, or BLASTING Loud. >X-P! So yeah.

I'm also hoping to be able to edit my voice too,add in more bass and treble/cut background noise, but as long as I can just quiet down the music bits that I have I'll be happy. (By the way, the music is totally independent of any Voice Recordings so far, so there's no worry about that. I'm just needing to know how to make a track louder or more silent when it is rendered out.)

Thank You so much to anyone who responds to this or has any idea of what I can do to make my audio files more silent. =-)! <3 =-)!

Specifications
I just tonight Nov. 9th, 2020, downloaded the latest version of Audacity, I think it said, Audacity 2.4.2 or something like that.
I have a rather cheap laptop that has the latest version of Windows 10 on it (as far as I know).
I don't know if this helps at all but they were saying you have to give this info. in the like Heading for the Forums section.

Audacity can't take apart a mixed performance into individual voices, songs, or sounds. So if the show is already mixed, you're stuck.

You can record your voice on its own Audacity track (or import an already recorded track) and then import music as separate tracks. They will all play at once unless you stop them with the MUTE or SOLO buttons on the left. You can select one track (button on the left) and add effects or corrections, and you can change the volume of the music track to be almost whatever you want.

There is one caution, New Users fall in love with MP3 files for everything. They're small, efficient, and sound terrific....once. If you use MP3 in your show and make the show into an MP3 for posting or sharing, the quality of all those MP3s goes down. If you do that twice, the MP3s can start to sound really ratty, cell-phony, honky, and talking into a milk jug. So if your show quality starts to sound a lot like some kid in a basement, that may be why. Stick with WAV (Microsoft) 16-bit for production files and masters. No, making an MP3 into a WAV doesn't erase all the damage. The music just doesn't turn to trash as fast.

If you already have a voice track, Audacity > File > Import and see if it opens. If your files are odd formats, you may need to install the FFMpeg plugin so Audacity knows what to do with them.

https://www.audacityteam.org/download/windows/

Scroll down.

Koz

SparklySquirrel wrote: ↑

Tue Nov 10, 2020 2:34 am

...All I'm wanting is to do is quiet down an audio file.
I just want to "mute" it down to say 15% or 30% its original loudness ...

Amplify by -10dB will reduce the volume to about a third of what it was.
(The more negative the number the quieter the sound becomes).

First you have to select the audio that you want to apply an effect (like amplify) to ...
https ://manual.audacityteam.org/man/selecting_audio_the_basics.html

There is more than one way to skin a cat ...
Could use the track-gain-slider , or envelope, or equalizer to reduce volume.

WOOT! >X-D!!!!!!!

Just to let anyone else know, I just found the answer myself, thankfully! =-D! So anyone else wanting to know this, here's what I did and found.

Here's What this person Showed on their site. What I did was a tad bit different so I'll tell what I did next. but here's what they did and the link in-case anyone was wondering. =-D!
When we narrate over music, we don’t want to have the background blowing us out. So, we will use Audacity to lessen the volume!

https://digicompdiy.wordpress.com/2011/ ... -audacity/
Digital Composition DIY
a how-to do digital media maker things – working with the students in the new media research studio @mccnyu

How to make background music quieter in Audacity

1. Open Audacity, and import your music clip.
2. On the gray box to the left side, the titled song will have a drop down arrow. Click it, and the menu will pop up. You will hit “Split Stereo Track”.
3. Next you will notice two separate tracks.
4. On each track, hit that same drop down arrow. Click “Mono” for both tracks.
5. Now, make sure you click on one track’s gray box. Anywhere in the box is okay – but do not hit any function or button. If you did it correctly, the box should be highlighted in a darker gray color. Now go to Effect (top menu bar) and click “Amplify”.
6. A box will pop up – you can drag the cursor higher or lower. In our case, we want quieter music, so we will move in a negative direction.
7. For example, I moved mine down to -6.0. Click “Okay”.
8. Compare the two tracks – the top one is much quieter than the bottom.
9. Repeat the process, on the bottom track.

Export as an mp3 or WAV file and you are good to go!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

And what I did was, I
1. Opened Audacity,
2. then Opened my Music Folder.
3. I clicked on the song I wanted to edit, and dragged and dropped it into Audacity.
4. I clicked the Title and the Drop Down Arrow and chose "Split Stereo Track" just like it said.

As for number 4 I couldn't find what it was talking about, so I wasn't able to like make each track Mono, but I don't totally know why one would want to do that.

5. Now, make sure you click on one track’s gray box. Anywhere in the box is okay – but do not hit any function or button. I clicked in the middle of the little monitors on the edge there. Turns out the colors don’t go darker, they just invert sort of, the track becomes bright and the box becomes a darker blue sort of.

6. Now go to Effect (top menu bar) and click “Amplify”. Turns out this is the main thing to configure the sound of a track. You can make it louder or quieter here.


7. A box will pop up – you can drag the cursor higher or lower. In our case, we want quieter music, so we will move in a negative direction. I found that actually typing in a value is best. Typing in -10.0 or even -15.0 is best to start with then adjust from there about -5.0 or less at a time after that. By the way each time you open the “Amplify” box it’ll look like the soundtrack is normally that volume, so you won’t be able to know how far it’s been adjusted, so mark it on a notepad or something.

8. Repeat the process, on the bottom track. Then listen to both. =-)!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I know I asked then answered my own question, but I'm just GLAD I found the answer so quickly (I usually don't sadly and terribly).
Anyway, I hope this can help anyone else who's struggling with the same Newbie problems. =-)!
I also hope that this can be put into a like "Beginner Basics" thread or something for others who are needing help with just how to use this thing. =-)!

SparklySquirrel wrote: ↑

Tue Nov 10, 2020 4:39 am

When we narrate over music, we don’t want to have the background blowing us out.
So, we will use Audacity to lessen the volume! ...

There is an Audacity tool which turns down the music when the narrator speaks called AutoDuck,
see ... https://youtu.be/buyFhtI-7uI?t=70