Read the section about audio envelopes. You can also drag the top of the clip down to balence it as a whole.

Keith

If you are using audio from multiple sources of various volume levels I would first import each to a seperate track then probably apply the normalize command which will raise the gain (volume) based on the highest peak in an event. Especially useful if some or all of the source is of low volume. Next reset the gain (level) of the track using the controls at the extreme left of each audio track. Do the same for additional tracks and adjust levels accordingly.

Now to have sections within a track raise or lower in volume add a volume envelope to the track. The basic how-to is covered in the tutorial. The idea here is to set points along the line which by default is long the middle axis of the track which will nicely control raising, lowering the volume to either specific video events or other audio events. So for example you could lower background music when someone speaks or really make a sound effect command attention.

Next add track effects, if desired add fade in/outs, control a track by routing to a seperate bus. This will add multiple busses along side the default audio bus that normally is to the left of the preview window. Used alone or in combination this gives you great control over gain and effects for all your audio. If that still isn't enough there are many presets for special effects like chorus, reverb and pitch shifting and elimination of noise.

Thanks for your help.

I think that normalize is way overused. My problem with using the software to haphazardly bring the levels up to maximum is the wrong way to go about it. First, consider the fact that different audio elements (music types, nat's, sfx, narration) all have different dynamic ranges which normalize can't account for.

Second, the more stuff you do to a audio file the more number crunching and the more rounding of the numbers----and depending on the accuracy of the math to do the "effect", you add noise.

I've found that the human ear, in a clean environment, is the best tool and should be the final judge of apparent loudness. By using the envelopes and listening you'll get a much better mix. It is important to listen in an environment that is close to what your final product will be played on. Also never mix at such a loud volume that the loudness overpowers the nature of human hearing (not everyone listens to their programs full open).

If your interested in improving your audio, may I suggest this website:

http://www.digido.com/

This is a great site and I'm humbled by it every time I read the material.

Hmmm...I had one audio sorce that was low in volume so I used the vol. slider on the track to up it a bit. I then went back and added envolopes to change volumes at different points in my video. It sounds ok in preview, but my 'master' output meter is hitting the red all the time (3-4db or something).

I hit the 'normalize' button on the audio tracks, but it didn't seem to do anything.

There are alot of options to increase the audio levels: Volume slider, velocity envolopes, and the 'Master' volume.

I don't know if I'm making any sense here. I don't want whoever is watching my video to have to constantly turn up and down the volume during the video, and I'd like to have my music kick up a little louder at some points (for a very short period of time).

If I understand the concept correctly the main reason you would want to normalize is the highest peak in the sample waveform becomes the basis, and other other audio is adjusted proportionally. Normalize does not mean the entire wave form is raised to some set point, rather everything sampled is boosted resulting in more gain with all the peaks in the "corrected" waveform now showing more pronounced spikes resuling in more gain (louder) sounding. If you see the master control going into the red, then you may want to reduce the dB gain on the track you adjusted back to 0.0.

Chapter Nine in the manual goes into some detailed discussion on using the mixer controls and adding additional buses. For example page 194 gives details on adjusting a bus to monitor clipping (once in the red area) this chapter goes on to discuss how to assign audio tracks to a particular bus for more control and other advanced audio topics. :-)

Hi Stiffler,

I think its important to understand that normalising a signal sets the biggest peak in the track to the level set in the audio preferences. All of the signal is then adjusted with this as the reference. So, if the biggest peak is increased by 3dB then the smallest peak will be increased by 3dB. Our ears do not recognise audio peaks but rather the amount of audio energy. If you normalised, say, audience applause to 0 and then normalised a drum solo to 0 (without compression or limiting) the applause would sound up to 10dB louder! Try it.
If you want your program material to have the same "loudness" then you need to normalise each scene using RMS not Peak as the basis. (This is an option in Sound Forge). Otherwise just use the volume envelope and set points appropriately.
"VU" stands for "Volume Units" and that's what they measure.
"Peak Meters" do not measure volume just electrical signals.

Hope that sheds a little light

jbl

Thanks for the advice, helps alot.