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02-25-2018, 06:46 AM
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#1
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Human being with feelings
Join Date: Apr 2015
Location: Brussels, Belgium
Posts: 704
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How to raise low levels without affecting higher ones in a file?
I found some old tapes of recordings I did a looong time ago and a few have one instrument that is completely burying the rest of the mix, because that mix was way to low to start with, i.e. a guitar solo and you can barely hear the backing track!
How would you go about balancing those levels so that both are equally audible? Ideally only raising the low level, without affecting too much the higher levels.
I'm not very good with a compressor so maybe that's the way to go but in my case, I couldn't produce the result I wanted. It sounded squashed and it didn't really raise the low level that much.
Any techniques, plugins, tricks you recommend?
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02-25-2018, 08:38 AM
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#2
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Human being with feelings
Join Date: Dec 2017
Posts: 54
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Unless they are multitrack recordings wirh the offending instrument by itself, I am afraid you are out of luck.
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02-25-2018, 08:44 AM
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#3
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Human being with feelings
Join Date: Apr 2015
Location: Brussels, Belgium
Posts: 704
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I'm not sure what you mean by multitrack recording? Do you mean like multiple files with the different audio on each, e.g. guitar solo on one and backing on another?
Errr...anyone can figure that one out.
I'm taking about a single file with a 'backing track'/music bed which is much too low compared to a lead guitar (and in case anyone would ask, no I'm not so lucky as to have them panned hard L & R).
I'm not so sure it can't be done...we'll see if anyone else has some ideas.
Thanks anyway,
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02-25-2018, 10:31 AM
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#4
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Human being with feelings
Join Date: Apr 2016
Location: UK, near Europe
Posts: 878
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Unless the "too loud" part is playing in a different frequency range from the "too quiet" part there's very little you can do about it. If you had a piccolo solo and the backing track with just basses and cellos then some selective EQing would probably help.
But where the loud instrument is playing in the same general range as the rest then you're pretty much out of options.
Steve
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02-25-2018, 10:37 AM
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#5
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Human being with feelings
Join Date: Sep 2010
Posts: 12,557
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Quote:
Originally Posted by chumbo
I found some old tapes of recordings I did a looong time ago and a few have one instrument that is completely burying the rest of the mix, because that mix was way to low to start with, i.e. a guitar solo and you can barely hear the backing track!
How would you go about balancing those levels so that both are equally audible? Ideally only raising the low level, without affecting too much the higher levels.
I'm not very good with a compressor so maybe that's the way to go but in my case, I couldn't produce the result I wanted. It sounded squashed and it didn't really raise the low level that much.
Any techniques, plugins, tricks you recommend?
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Duplicate the track in question (this "track" might be a whole mix).
On one, bludgeon the offending dynamic content however needed to focus on the rest of the program instead.
On the other, focus on preserving the dynamic bits cleanly. (This may mean doing nothing.)
Mix.
This might open up more possibilities if a multiband comp wasn't letting you get your hands on things enough. You'll at least be able to get away with something.
PS. For parallel processing like this, always make sure you know any of the plugins you use handle PDC correctly and/or you know the offset so you keep everything locked in phase.
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02-25-2018, 06:10 PM
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#6
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Human being with feelings
Join Date: Dec 2017
Posts: 54
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Basically, you can't unbake a cake.
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02-26-2018, 12:09 AM
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#7
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Human being with feelings
Join Date: May 2017
Posts: 3,201
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The General Dynamics plugin might be useful.
Preview the quiet stuff and watch for min & max levels. Draw a line to change how sounds in that amplitude range are changed. For example, if the background sound is from -36 to -20 dB, you can alter just that range so it will come out at -16 to 0 dB. And it will leave any louder sounds untouched (unless of course you change them with another line).
The horizontal scale represents the incoming sound, the vertical scale is the output sound. So, for the example above, you would draw a line from (x,y) -36,-16 to -20, 0. One thing I wish this plugin had is cursor readouts; that would be super handy for this sort of work.
Because you can bring extremely quiet stuff into an extremely loud state, I highly recommended you mute the Main track routinely before hitting play until you can verify it's not trying to output +42 dB or something into your playback system. At least until you get familiar with how it works.
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