I have a field recording that I want to playback on directional speakers, but those speakers have a very narrow dynamic range. I was told that they are HSS speakers, not sure what that means, though.
The recording includes low wind noise and intermittent gunshots. The speakers, so far, are unable to incorporate that range and it comes out sounding very distant, tinny and weak. I've tried manipulating the equalizer to bring down the low and and the high end, as well as boosting the volume output on the gunshots and dropping everything else out.
I know next to nothing when it comes to sound editing. My starting file is a WAV file and I need to output to either an MP3 or a AAC file on a burnable CD-R.
If anyone can help me find a way to get the most out of this sound recording, I would be most appreciative. One person has suggested Compression, but I'm not certain what that means, exactly.
Apologies for my ignorance,
Thank you.
playback on HSS directional speakers
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This forum is for Audacity on macOS 10.4 and later.Please state which version of macOS you are using,
and the exact three-section version number of Audacity from "Audacity menu > About Audacity".
Audacity 1.2.x and 1.3.x are obsolete and no longer supported. If you still have those versions, please upgrade at https://www.audacityteam.org/download/.
The old forums for those versions are now closed, but you can still read the archives of the 1.2.x and 1.3.x forums.
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kozikowski
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Re: playback on HSS directional speakers
I don't think you have an HSS Speaker problem. You have a straight recording problem. Trying to record background birds chirping and wind noise followed by gunshots is a nightmare sound job. Nature doesn't fit in most recording systems.
Do you already have the mixed track? As an experiment, I think I would select one or two gunshots (drag-select each one) and Effect > Amplify by a specific number in the top box. Manually type in -6 or -10 or some number into the top box and that has the effect of reducing the volume level by that much. See if there is any reduction that sounds close. It's not going to sound perfect, but i should give us an idea if you can do this job at all.
Why do you need HSS Speakers? HSS Speakers don't actually produce musical sound. They produce two very powerful ultrasonic sounds (that only dogs can hear) but they make your ear think there is musical sound. The trick is the ability to project "sound" in a very narrow beam which you can't do with regular speakers at all.
It's the complicated ultrasonic processing that messes up loudness range -- in addition to the range being too large for any un-fancy sound system.
Koz
Do you already have the mixed track? As an experiment, I think I would select one or two gunshots (drag-select each one) and Effect > Amplify by a specific number in the top box. Manually type in -6 or -10 or some number into the top box and that has the effect of reducing the volume level by that much. See if there is any reduction that sounds close. It's not going to sound perfect, but i should give us an idea if you can do this job at all.
Why do you need HSS Speakers? HSS Speakers don't actually produce musical sound. They produce two very powerful ultrasonic sounds (that only dogs can hear) but they make your ear think there is musical sound. The trick is the ability to project "sound" in a very narrow beam which you can't do with regular speakers at all.
It's the complicated ultrasonic processing that messes up loudness range -- in addition to the range being too large for any un-fancy sound system.
Koz