Audio cut off after Loudness Normalization

[kozikowski]

This is what my -96dB meters look like in real life.

MeterRange-96dB.png (125.68 KiB) Viewed 112 times

We note that the original Cool Edit sound meters did this across the bottom of the screen instead of the top.

But wait. There's more!

The playback meters are set to display Peak and RMS, Green and Chartreuse.

The Recording meters are adjusted to display Green, Yellow, Orange, and Angry Red overload as your volume increases.

Koz

[kozikowski]

Yell if you get lost. I just go until somebody stops me.

For example, you can convert a stereo (two blue wave) track to mono (one blue wave) with Tracks > Mix > Mix Stereo to Mono.

Screen Shot 2021-01-23 at 10.26.05 AM.png (29.44 KiB) Viewed 103 times

Koz

[jayholden]

Thanks very much for all the advice and information. This is far and away more than I was hoping for. I'll proceed with the steps you've recommended, Koz.

Our first attempt at this was via Zoom and I wound up scrapping it. Everyone's sound quality is vastly different so each track requires it own approach to mastering. I'm expecting a lot of work. So far I'm around 15 hours in - silencing sniffles, and overlapping voices, cutting out sections, etc (the original audio was nearly 3 hours long before slicing into ~50-minute chunks, which will each serve as one episode). I know it won't sound spectacular, but I'd like it to sound as good as I can make it given the constraints.

We did a countdown to hit the record button, and I snapped intermittently (when there was a portion I knew I wanted to discard) so syncing the audio up hasn't proven to be much of an issue.

[kozikowski]

Everyone's sound quality is vastly different so each track requires it own approach to mastering

News shows are running into this constantly now. It used to be when they "cut to the guy at the building fire," you were expecting fire-engine sounds and chaos. Now, it's recording in the kitchen echoes and refrigerator sounds from everybody in the news team.

This is far and away more than I was hoping for.

Any opportunity to be obsessive.

Audacity, unless prevented by the MUTE and SOLO buttons will play everything top to bottom and give you a good idea what the finished show is going to sound like. Select one performer > SOLO > and apply any corrections needed. UnSOLO and they will return to the mix.

syncing the audio up hasn't proven to be much of an issue.

You win. Nobody ever thinks about that.

silencing sniffles

That's obsessive. It's supposed to sound natural like people meeting in a room. Unless it's a theater presentation. Is it?

There is a correction to my posts. You can't simply save a Lossless Project. Save a regular one. It seems I uncovered an unintended feature [cough-bug].

So far I'm around 15 hours in...

That's the leading sentence to the forum help post that continues: ...and my computer/Audacity crashed. The show is silent now. Is there any way to retrieve my work? It's really important!

You will note I stressed twice in the posts that you be able to recover from catastrophic failure with, at most, annoying inconvenience.

Let us know how it goes.

I published notes for a kitchen table sound studio.

viewtopic.php?p=369938#p369938

Koz

[jayholden]

Thanks Koz. I used to work on important websites for a living, so setting up automated backups are a standard part of my routine.

Sniffles from one performer are fine. From 5 it's overwhelming. IMO

I'll let you know how it goes.

[kozikowski]

There is one other oddity it's good to know about. You can't overload Audacity by an action or effect. Once the show is on a timeline, it's possible for the waveforms to exceed 100% (0dB) with no damage. Yes, if you have clipping damage warning set, you will get red lines...



... but it's metaphorical damage. The sound isn't really gone and you can apply another effect or correction to bring it back. This also means you can experience everybody laughing at the same time and fix it later just before exporting the edit master with Soft Limiter. That's the third step in Audiobook Mastering.

Soft Limiting gracefully, gently-but-firmly reduces the volume of a sound so it's almost impossible to tell what it did, but "for some reason," the sound peaks never seem to go over the set limiting value.

As with most effects, you can go nuts and create damage. That segment where everybody laughs at once is not going to sound natural, but hopefully, it will be past quickly before anybody notices what happened.

Oh, this overload thing? That's why Audacity runs internally at 32-bit floating instead of the more normal 16-bit data, and that's why you have to "convert" formats when you Export a sound file.

Overload immunity vanishes the instant you make a normal sound file. Overload in a WAV file will sound like gritty trash.

Koz