Hi Robert! A question regarding your proposed procedure, since I'm about to embark on a drama workshop where I'll be mixing vocal traks and ambience. Is it necessary to mix and render to a new track, then select all, apply Amplify and delete the mixed track? Wouldn't the same result be achieved by just applying Mix and Render and then applying Amplify to reduce the mixed track to 0 dBFS? Thanks! Robbie -----Original Message----- From: audacity4blind-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:audacity4blind-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Robert Hänggi Sent: Saturday, December 6, 2014 7:53 PM To: audacity4blind@xxxxxxxxxxxxx Subject: [audacity4blind] Re: Normalizing Versus Amplification Versus Gain 2014-12-06 18:44 GMT+01:00, Rich De Steno <ironrock@xxxxxxxxxxx>: > Robert, thanks for this detailed response. I pretty much understand > it, except for this last part: > My question: > After you mix and render all tracks to a single track, you say to also > select the mixed track and then "Normalize or amplify all selected > tracks, including the mixed track, to e.g. -3 dB, and then to delete > the mixed track. Why include the mixed track in the normalization or > amplification? It seems redundant to do so , since it duplicates the > material in the separate tracks and then you are deleting it anyway. It is important to include the mixed track and to use amplify (not normalize). The mixed track is the sum of all other tracks. The amplify effect proposes a value that reduces the gain to reach 0 dB. It takes the loudest track to calculate this value. That's of course the mixed track. It then subtracts this dB value from all tracks equally which automatically results in a perfect mix. Let's say that our tracks have the following values: Track 1 -6 dB (0.5) Track 2 -6 dB (0.5) Track 3 0 dB (1.0) mixed 6 dB (0.5 + 0.5 + 1.0 = 2.0) Amplify will now show "-6 dB". All tracks are therefore amplified by -6 dB, that is their values are halved. And this gives 0.25+0.25+0.5 = 1.0 (without the mixed track, as you can see). In order to reach an overall level of -3 dB, you can either directly enter -9 dB instead of -6 dB or amplify a second time with -3 dB (the proposal will be 0 dB). If you would omit the mixed track, the loudest track would be taken (0 dB in our example) and thus 0 dB amplification will be proposed. If you want to recreate this example, make sure that you have three identical tracks. The proposed amplification value will be smaller when the tracks are different (try e.g. white noise). The reason is that all individual samples are added together, for white noise, this could result in anything from -2 to 2 but in average + 3 dB instead of +6 dB for two full scale wave forms (i.e. 0 dB or -1 to 1). However, the procedure works for all cases, just the amplification factor will change. I know, that's even more confusing than the last reply... Robert The audacity4blind web site is at //www.freelists.org/webpage/audacity4blind Subscribe and unsubscribe information, message archives, Audacity keyboard commands, and more... To unsubscribe from audacity4blind, send an email to audacity4blind-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx with subject line unsubscribe The audacity4blind web site is at //www.freelists.org/webpage/audacity4blind Subscribe and unsubscribe information, message archives, Audacity keyboard commands, and more... To unsubscribe from audacity4blind, send an email to audacity4blind-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx with subject line unsubscribe