muvipix Community

Dear Experts:

Please Help.

Using PRE 7 I have created a video using different recording devices (camera, lavalier, direct into computer) and since I have defective hearing I have a hard time making the different sections of the audio track at the same audio output level when I make/play the dvd it goes up and down in a very disturbing way to most viewers.



The yellow rubber band method is not very accurate and even tho I try to make all the same level, since some of them were recorded "louder" than ot\hers originally the db settings dont help. When I try the audio mixer approach same problem.



Is there anyway to highlight all the parts of the total audio track and make them all the same level?



Appreciate any suggestions.



Tom

Well, sort of, Tom.

First, as I say in my books, you should leave your Audio Mixer open as you work. Even those with excellent hearing should do this since it doesn't matter what you hear -- it's what levels are being recorded that matter. With your Audio Mixer open, you can watch your audio levels and ensure they're peaking at about or slightly over zero.

You can automatically raise or lower the volume for a segment by right-clicking on it, selecting Audio Gain and clicking the Normalize button. But this tool bases its results on the loudest sound in that clip. So, if you've got something loud and something quiet in the same clip, both sounds will be raised or lowered equally. It won't make the quieter one louder to match the louder.

That you have to do on your own, using audio keyframing on that little yellow "rubber band" running through the audio tracks (again, as described in my books). But, using the Audio Mixer as your guide, you should be able to give your video a nice, even sound level.

Another option is to export the entire project audio only, then import the new audio clip as one single audio file. Replace the old audio clips with this new one (shouldn't need to do any syncing) and then use the Normalize Audio Effect on the single clip. Can't really do this until your project is pretty much complete but it works great

Tom Berquist wrote:Is there anyway to highlight all the parts of the total audio track and make them all the same level?
Appreciate any suggestions.

Tom, I confess I like Magix software products for several specialised functions. One piece of software they make that I come back to time and again is their Audio Cleaning Lab and, based on a quick test just performed, should do what you want. My workflow was:

1. Export all audio from PRE into a single .wav.
2. Delete all audio from PRE.
3. Import to Audio Cleaning Lab.
4. Cut at each major change in audio levels (really easy in ACL).
5. Normalize each segment. This ensures they all operate at the same level.
6. Export back to .wav
7. Import back into PRE

I expect something similar could be done in Audacity.

Here the before and after: