Audacity Forum

I have several CDs of a particular artist, many of which have been remastered and have a much louder sound than the non-remastered ones. What I would like to do is use Audacity to increase the volume of the tracks of these non-remastered CDs to match, as closely thereto as possible, the volume of the tracks from the remastered ones. I would assume I use the Amplify function to do this. If so, how would I make sure I set it right so that it matches the sound level of the remastered tracks? If Amplify is not the right way to do what I want, provided it can be done at all, how do I go about doing it? Thanks!

Steve

The Amplify effect won't help. The tracks have been made louder by applying dynamic range compression.
See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dynamic_range_compression
and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loudness_war

You can use Audacity's Compressor effect to accomplish this. It will take some understanding of how the effect works, then some fiddling with the controls to get the effect you want. There is no magic formula for matching the compression of one track to another.

-- Bill

Bill-

Thank you very much for your response! I checked out both articles and found them quite interesting. So I guess there's no way to determine what level of compression the remastered tracks underwent and then just compress the non-remastered tracks to the same level? I haven't had a chance to mess with the compression feature yet in Audacity.

What I am thinking about doing is importing two versions of the same track-one that's remastered and one that isn't. Fortunately, I kept the non-remastered CDs and gave them to my son. Then I could use the compression feature on the non-remastered track until the loudness of the non-remastered track was as close to the loudness of the remastered track as my ears could distinguish and then use that compression setting for the albums that have not been remastered. Does that sound like the way to go?

Once again Bill, thank you so much for your response!

Steve

Steve:
Have a look at this thread: http://forum.audacityteam.org/viewtopic ... 42&t=63067
Steve's ReplayGain plugin may help you with your project.
If you find it useful, or have any suggestions, please leave feedback in that thread.

-- Bill

Bill:

I've used the ReplayGain to determine what the old db level was on the non-remastered album that came out two years before the album which I'm trying to "remaster". I then used ReplayGain to determine what the new db level was on each track on the remastered version of the album that came out two years before the album which I'm trying to "remaster". Every track was increased by 3. For example, Track one on the non-remastered album was at -5.5db. On the new one, that track's level is -8.5db.

So, now I'm ready to compress. I opened up the compressor and you probably could've heard my eyes audibly blinked. I have no clue how to adjust the settings to result in a +3 db change. Any guidance?

Steve

You probably can't work out the exact amount of gain that will be produced, but the following settings should give just a little over +3 dB boost:
Threshold: -12
Ratio: 2:1
Compress based on Peaks.

Leave the other settings at their defaults.

The manual page: http://manual.audacityteam.org/manual/h ... essor.html

When I used the ReplayGain, it produced a total of 17 different db levels for the track to which i analyzed. Furthermore, at about the halfway point, ReplayGain quits. In the most recent case, 7 minutes had elapsed and there was 7 minutes to go. Is this normal?

When I applied the ReplayGain the first time, after the first db reading came up, I quit it. I'm guessing I should let it run completely for every track on both the non-remastered album tracks and the remastered album tracks on the album that came out two years prior to the one I'm wanting to remaster?

Steve

Please note that the plug-in in the "ReplayGain" topic here: http://forum.audacityteam.org/viewtopic ... 42&t=63067 is not "ReplayGain".
As it says in the first post of that topic:
"This plug-in is an implementation of ReplayGain that calculates the Track Gain of the selected audio track."

As explained here: http://wiki.hydrogenaudio.org/index.php ... ReplayGain ReplayGain is a technique invented to achieve the same perceived playback loudness of audio files using a special algorithm (formula) to calculate perceived loudness.

Also please note that the plug-in is an experimental "work in progress", hence there is no real documentation other than what is written in that topic.

Xsntrk wrote: Furthermore, at about the halfway point, ReplayGain quits. In the most recent case, 7 minutes had elapsed and there was 7 minutes to go. Is this normal?

7 minutes processing time seems extremely long for processing a track. What are you trying to do? How long are the tracks? What sort of computer are you using?

I had imported 17 tracks and even though I only had one selected, it was analyzing all of them, hence the 17 different results. I deleted all of the tracks out and reanalyzed them one by one.

I used the compressor some and on the first two tracks, to get the nonremastered track equal in db to the remastered track, I had to drop the threshold down to -3 and -2 respectively. However, on the next three tracks, when trying to go from -6.2 to -9.2, -4.3 to -7.4, and -4.3 to -7.3, I could only get to -7.8, -6.7, and -5.8 respectively, after dropping the threshold all the way down to -1. While those results would be an improvement, I'd really like to get as close as possible to the desired level. Any other adjustment I can make to get it to get those db values where I want them?

Xsntrk wrote:I had imported 17 tracks and even though I only had one selected, it was analyzing all of them,

That should not happen. I don't see how it can happen - Nyquist plug-ins can't do that, they can only process tracks that are selected.
By default, if you don't have a selection in Audacity and you try to apply an effect, Audacity will automatically select all audio tracks (see here: "Select all audio in project, if none selected:". Perhaps that is what happened.

Assuming that you are using the current version of the plug-in from this topic http://forum.audacityteam.org/viewtopic ... 42&t=63067 (you have not confirmed or denied this), the way that the plug-in is intended to be used is that the effect is applied with the same setting to all tracks that you wish to sound the same loudness. This may be done one track at a time, multiple tracks selected at the same time, or as a "Chain" (batch) process. It is important that the same setting is used on all tracks. The "Normalize" option will then amplify each track to about the same loudness.

After applying the effect, you may use the "Amplify" effect on the tracks, but if you do so the same Amplify amount must be applied to every track.

If you use any compression effect, that should be done before applying the equal loudness plug-in effect and the settings that you use must be the same as you used for other tracks.