hi.
I have found a bunch of songs, i converted to mp3’s about 20 years ago… or more. I had no clue what mixing was and of course it is too late to work on that aspect.
However,
When i play a song back, certain parts of it dip in volume. Now i realize that that if there is no answer to this question, that I may have to just get into the mixer and automate the volume myself, increasing the volume when i know it will dip.
But, is there an insert which will make this easier ?
Such as process the file (which was converted to a wave I guess) so that the volumes are constrained between 2 levels, making the lower passages a bit louder ?
or use some kind of limiter to bring all parts of the song which are too loud , down to the lowest musical section ?
I have a feeling that a Compressor or a normalizing process may be the answer, but i have no idea where i would begin.
As well, my 11 songs have some which are louder than others. I would like to have them all at the same volume so that the listener wouldn’t block her ears out if they jack up the volume for song one, and song 2 is too loud…
Am i asking too much ?..
ok… for fun, i opened the wave editor down below. and noted the waveforms which were smaller.
I then loaded up the AUDIO-PROCESSESS- GAIN option, and played with the gain until the lower volume parts were the same size as the other parts…
Totally visual and juvenile but it is not too bad , although more times consuming than what you experts may suggest.
steve
That is exactly what a compressor does. You’d do well to find some good videos explaining the details of using compression (sorry don’t have any recommendations). Different folks take different approaches on using compressors (they can be quite flexible in how they can be used) so it’s a good idea to get several different perspectives showing different possibilities.
Also do a search here, I’m sure there are some threads on the topic. But maybe do some videos first to get acquainted with the terminology.
Sound on Sound have just done an article on the basics of compression that might help here.
Or for mixing in general there’s Mike Senior’s excellent book ‘Mixing Secrets for the Small Studio’.
SUPER !!!
thanks for the recommendation!