Boosting audio...

W

Whipsmack

Member
To prove a point to my friend who is completely nuts and thinks the proper way to boost audio while editing is to layer the same wav over the other rather then taking it into sony soundforge and just increasing the volume.....................He refuses to just increase it, he has to layer an identical wav over the other. WTF
 
If you just want to bring up the level of the clip, whatever program you are using can probably apply gain, and you can always move up the fader, so yeah, just dropping in another track with the same wav is not really the best way to achieve the goal.
 
For some STUPID reason, probably because it's "easy" this is something that I see a fair amount, especially with FCP. There are a multitude of reasons this is wrong. The biggest is you can get in to really nasty phasing problems VERY easily. To avoid that you have to make sure that all the dups stay locked to gether AND are at the same volume. Now if you think about that a second you realize what a huge pain that is. Now there is no reason to send the file to another app. ANY half way decent NLE has enough gain to adjust any file that was recorded by anyone but an idiot. OK that is a little over the top but any audio track that needs more than 12dB of gain ... well you just shouldn't run into many.
 
I was the guy recording the sound with a portable recorder, I dont monitor it while we record though not enough people since I was the subject. I guess our gain is too low, I should just turn on the limiter and turn the gain way the hell up.

Usually the Sony PCM-D50 is very sensitive. hmmm
 
Whipsmack said:
He says he can only increase gain by 6db in premiere and thats why he does it.
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Not that he should be doing it, but there is a Normalize function if you right click on the audio track that'll allow him to pump it up as much as he wants. Of course beyond 6db or so it starts sounding completely nasty. Best to just record it right the first time.
 
Whipsmack said:
I was the guy recording the sound with a portable recorder, I dont monitor it while we record though not enough people since I was the subject. I guess our gain is too low, I should just turn on the limiter and turn the gain way the hell up.

Usually the Sony PCM-D50 is very sensitive. hmmm
Click to expand...

Not sure I'd agree that being the subject means you can't monitor - there are nearly invisible in-ear monitors you can wear - but if you feel you can't monitor because you're on-camera, why don't you use a rehearsal run-through with the same micing to set levels, putting the recorder close to you where you CAN watch the meters and monitor, then engage the limiters for the take? Sound is too important to just guess at it and hope it'll work out. Don't guess - figure out a workflow so you can KNOW. Even better, bring someone on-board whose job it is to handle the sound - you wouldn't try to operate the camera yourself and still be the subject would you? Why do you think sound requires less attention to getting it right than does the camera?
 
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