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Subject:what's the best way to make an quiet CD louder?
Posted by: longb
Date:8/29/2002 6:37:55 PM

I have Sound Forge 6 and haven't used it yet. I have a CD I recorded back in 98 with low levels. Any suggestions? The manual said something about normalizing but didn't go into detail. Should I just up the volume and save? or is it more complicated than that? Any advice will help

Thanks!

Subject:RE: what's the best way to make an quiet CD louder?
Reply by: Engineer
Date:8/29/2002 7:14:41 PM

You have several things to help you here.
VOLUME. NORMALIZING. WAVE HAMMER.
volume will lift your file, becareful you dont lift it too much or you may go over 0.
normalizing will lift your file to 0 or whatever you set it to.
wave hammer will lift your file to 0 or whatever you set it to plus a lot more.
you have all these files in sf 6.

Subject:RE: what's the best way to make an quiet CD louder?
Reply by: Jessariah
Date:8/29/2002 11:30:31 PM

Long,

The "louder" question you ask is about two clicks short of asking "which came first -- the chicken or the egg?"

Some people like the dynamics; some like to see that meter steady at -.1dB. Ultimately, it's a "listen thing." My suggestion: normalize the file. Listen to it. Use WaveHammer to squeeze it. If that doesn't give you satisfactory results, pull up a compressor plugin and play around with the threshold and ratio.

People literally spend a lifetime answering this questions. To some, it has a scientific answer; to others, it goes case by case. You just have to play with it and let your ears be your guide...

Subject:RE: what's the best way to make an quiet CD louder?
Reply by: Rednroll
Date:8/30/2002 10:06:36 AM

"what's the best way to make an quiet CD louder?"

My non-scientific explaination:
"Take the knob of your CD player, and turn up the volume"

:-)

Subject:RE: what's the best way to make an quiet CD louder?
Reply by: TomB
Date:8/30/2002 10:09:13 AM

Hi,
There is some interisting advice about mastering there:
http://www.johnvestman.com/
(browse the site)
Have a good one...
Tom


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