Audio volume mastering?

BittenByTheBug wrote on 4/11/2009, 11:00 AM
Hi all,

I have several pieces of audios in the timeline. They are of different volumes (loudness). How do I get them to the same volume level (is this called mastering)? Do I have to adjust them individually? How?

I also have Sound Forge Audio Studio. I am new to that, too. Let me know if that's what I should be looking into.

Thanks!

Comments

Eugenia wrote on 4/11/2009, 4:02 PM
You grab that line from the top of the waveform and you drag it down. And if you need more volume for a specific clip, put it on its own audio timeline, and jack up the volume in the track controls.
jetdv wrote on 4/11/2009, 4:43 PM
You can also use a Volume Envelope to adjust the volume dynamically on the timeline. Then you also have effects such as the compressor which can help even out volume levels.
Eugenia wrote on 4/11/2009, 5:59 PM
I think Envelopes are only in the Pro version of Vegas, not Movie Studio.
Chienworks wrote on 4/11/2009, 7:38 PM
The studio version has volume and pan envelopes.
BittenByTheBug wrote on 4/11/2009, 8:09 PM
Eugenia, jetdv, and Chienworks, Thanks a lot! I will try them all. This should solve my problem.

BBTB
Chienworks wrote on 4/11/2009, 9:05 PM
The other option i like to use when the entire clip is very low volume is to right-mouse-button click on it and choose Switches / Normalize. This raises the loudest peak up to near maximum value. Often this alone will bring most of the tracks to much closer levels. The thing to watch out for is stray loud peaks. If most of your audio is at -40dB and there's one loud peak at -3dB then normalize will only bring the -40dB up to -37dB which is very little difference. If i see peaks like that i'll usually isolate them by splitting the event just to either side of the peak and then normalizing the pieces separately.

Compression can do something similar and better without being tripped up by the peaks, but it's not as easy to use.