Another option for amplification?

[davethewave]

Is there another way instead of amplification to boost volume without the noise? I m thinking limiter and possibly slight Reverb, but would like to know
the most widely used and method of choice.

[DVDdoug]

When you amplify everything gets amplified including the noise. Is that what you're talking about? Or, are you talking about clipping (distortion)?

Limiting and compression makes the signal-to-noise ratio worse.

[kozikowski]

would like to know the most widely used and method of choice.

Depends on the noise. There is no button push that gets rid of "everything I don't want."

What's the job? Your question has the feel of having a particular job fail and you extrapolated it to "what's the best tool in the world." Let's bring it back down to your job.

Koz

[davethewave]

More info, of course! I have streaming audio that was recorded way too low. If I were to amplify it would want to add around 8 db.Should I just add 4 db and be done with it? Or is there some other technique that I'm unaware of that requires more work but better results?Or am I over thinking this?

[DVDdoug]

Digital amplification doesn't hurt anything (as long as you don't try to go over 0dB). It's not much different from turning-up the volume control. Digital amplification is generally better than analog amplification.

Either way (analog or digital), turning up the volume will boost any existing background noise making it more noticeable.

BTW - Noise reduction probably won't help if the noise is so bad that you're complaining about it. Noise reduction works best when you have a constant low-level background noise... When you don't really need it.

[kozikowski]

Noise Reduction has another odd problem. You have to tell it what the noise is. There has to be some portion of the show where everybody shuts up long enough for there to be pure background and nothing else. The first step in Noise Reduction is where you carefully select that clean noise and Effect > Noise Reduction > Profile. Then you Effect > Noise Reduction the whole show for real and it knows what to go after.

it would want to add around 8 db.

This is where I tell you to listen to it critically with your high quality headphones or killer sound system.

Select the show and Effect > Amplify and read the top number Don't apply anything. That's the amount of boosting Amplify would want to do to make the single very loudest blue wave tip go all the way up without creating distortion. If instead, you're matching existing shows or music, then your mileage may vary, void where prohibited.

Make sure you have a safety backup of the show and do your corrections to hear what it sounds like (on your killer sound system). Then File > UNDO and the correction will vanish. File > UNDO stops working when you close Audacity.

Do you know what happened so you don't do it again?

Koz