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Mastering a quiet recording with loud crowd...?

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Bullet1979

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I've been having this issue with my live recordings for some time now where my recordings come out super quiet and I have to raise the volume very extensively to have the recordings be even close to normal volume for listening purposes - and they still end up being a little too quiet because I can only amplify the recording so much before the audience between songs will cause clipping. My latest recording is especially suffering from this because it was a quieter-than-usual show due to it being a solo show as opposed to a full band. So I suppose I have two main questions...

1: What is the best process I can follow to amplify the recording to a good level when the audience between songs records louder than the music itself?

2: Any advice on not having this happen anymore in the future? Is the only way to turn the levels down between songs?

I use core-sound cardioids w/battery box into the line-in of an Edirol R-09. Even with the recording at level 30 (highest) my recordings come out whisper quiet before mastering. I've also used sound professionals in-ear microphones into the line-in of a Sony MZ-RH10 with the same outcome.

Thanks for any advice!

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I don't know about the Edirol line-in, but I hope you're using a battery box into the RH10 line-in.

This is a really tricky situation and I don't think there's any easy solution.

Manual control is manual control. Changing the input volume yourself is the best bet. Auto level is going to ruin musical subtleties.

Or how about leaving the volume up and just editing out the audience when it clips? Do you really need the applause in the final recording? I always push the Track button on the remote when the final note dies out (which, unfortunately, is usually after the applause starts) but I don't really need the 30-40 seconds of applause between songs. If I were preparing the songs for anyone else to hear, I'd open them in Audacity and do a fade-out during the few seconds when the last note fades out and the audience starts to clap.

Edited by A440
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1: What is the best process I can follow to amplify the recording to a good level when the audience between songs records louder than the music itself?

An audio compressor is the tool for this. Note that an audio compressor has nothing to do with data compression such as ATRAC or MP3. It's a tool that dynamically adjusts the volume levels (peaks, etc) of an audio source so that the whole signal can be raised in volume without clipping. You can buy an actual hardware compressor to go into your signal chain, or use one of many free software audio compressors out there (usually made available as VST plug-ins for audio processing software). Audacity is a free open source audio manipulation program that can use such plug-ins. Reaper is another. I'm sure there are many more. You will have to do some reading in order to understand how to use them.

A "Mastering Limiter" is another type of plug-in that might do the job you want.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dynamic_range_compression

http://sound.westhost.com/compression.htm

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An audio compressor is the tool for this. Note that an audio compressor has nothing to do with data compression such as ATRAC or MP3. It's a tool that dynamically adjusts the volume levels (peaks, etc) of an audio source so that the whole signal can be raised in volume without clipping. You can buy an actual hardware compressor to go into your signal chain, or use one of many free software audio compressors out there (usually made available as VST plug-ins for audio processing software). Audacity is a free open source audio manipulation program that can use such plug-ins. Reaper is another. I'm sure there are many more. You will have to do some reading in order to understand how to use them.

A "Mastering Limiter" is another type of plug-in that might do the job you want.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dynamic_range_compression

http://sound.westhost.com/compression.htm

Thanks for the tip here... it sounds like this is the direction I need to go. I have Adobe Audition on my PC - can you recommend any particular plugins to get this job done?

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