Sounds like it could be a bug, but you aren't going to accomplish anything by doing it that way anyway.

Problem is, as soon as someone coughs or drops a book the audio peaks and normalize will treat that as the maximum level and not have any overall effect. In weddings where the sound is low, I have to manually (S)eparate out peaks like coughs and normalize the clips to either side. In fact, I tend to separate every 1 minute and normalize.

It might sound painful but having a right-click normalize is one of the things that made me fall in love with VV3.

hello there.

what if I want to normalize the sound of the whole project?
does "right click/ switch/ normalize" work?
or I just apply this "right click/ switch/ normalize" to all of the sound clips
within the project?
(there is a trick maybe someone already knew to apply the same FX to
several different clips (audio or video) in a time.
like the "normalize FX", say, use "ctrl" or "shift" to select multiple clips,
then apply "right click/ switch/ normalize", done.

what I wanna know is how to control the volume in a common standard level
thus u won't have someone speak sometimes sounds too quiet
while sometimes have a loud voice.

thanks for all opinions in advance~

create a volume envelope for the entire project then
:)
sb

Sometimes it is best to apply the normalize routine (by event as needed) also use the compressor feature for gain control and also add a volume envelope. It really depends. Each project is different. The tutorial gives some nice examples to get you started.

Remember what normalize does... it analyzes some event, then raises the volume based on the highest peak adjusting the remaining peaks in the event accordingly. If you attempt to adjust the entire project or even too large an event if there is a wide range of volumes changes, you won't likely get the results you want. As a first step isolate similar areas and work on them indvidually.

Thanks for the advice, guys. Sounds like "sound" advice. I'll heed it.

You need to upgrade to version 3.0c. A bug in the "Normalize" function was corrected. I upgraded from 3.0a to 3.0c for that reason myself.

John

I STARTED with version 3.0c. Never had an earlier version. But, thanks, anyway. I have uninstalled it and reinstalled it, including cleaning the registry, 3 times. No change. Still flat lines on me.

You may have to break it up into segments by splitting the timeline up. Use the "S" key. Go around the spikes so it doesn't average them. That should work even though it is time consuming.
John

Hey
On any project I like to render the audio track separately, then open it in a sound editor for whatever work nec. - I use sound forge, but you could use something like goldwave for trial purposes. After whatever sweetening, I simply bring in the new track and mute the old one. I imagine you could try just rendering the soundtrack and then re-importing it into VV3, using that to do any audio work.

When you normalize, the software has to either look for all the peaks, or in something like sound forge 6, calculate the rms accross the file -- in my experience VV3 (or most editors) can only look at each file individually and then do the job one file at a time. This runs counter to your purpose; say one file that's got the lowest peaks gets boosted 4+ db, while another might not get boosted at all, and the relative loudness is all over the place.

Also, when you apply normalization that way, some of the files may be altered too much, and need to have their peaks rebuilt by selecting that option manually.

Useing the entire soundtrack, if your purpose is to maintain the relative loudness while boosting overall levels, normalize should work. If you want to even it out a bit more, normalizing by rms might work a bit better. If you want to cut down any spikes from loud noises like someone dropping a book etc., then you might want to compress the file to bring these spikes down to better match the rest of your track before final normalization. Similarly if you want to boost any quieter sections, you could use an expander to increase the loudness of anything below a certain db, and the suggestion about using envelopes could work as well, or maybe for final tuning.

The only caution to all of this is that when you increase the levels across the board, you're increasing the loudness of any recording noise as well. Depending on your recording equipment of coarse, you might start to hear all sorts of stuff during any quiet passages once you bring up the levels. Myself, I like to use the noise reduction plug-in once before I perform any modifications, then again after normalization etc. to try and keep this to a minimum. The ideal solution is to use top quality gear (along with someone else to use it whilst recording the video) in the first place, but alas for me that's simply way out of reach at the moment.

Hope this might help.

wcoxe1:

Please try this. Right-click on the flatlined event, select "Properties". Underneath the checked "Normalize" checkbox, what is it showing for the Gain? Positive or negative? Does it change when you press "Recalculate"? If you split the event at different places, does each section act differently in this dialog box when you Recalculate?

Finally, what is the file format of the source media that is having the flat-line problem.

Thanks.
///d@

P.S. Just to confirm, what is the build number in the About box?

I can confirm that the bug still exists with 3.0c. Working on a wedding right now and of about 100 highlighted clips that I normalized, 5 or 6 flatlined unless I turned normalize off for them.

-Doug

hmmm- we thought we corrected the flatlining normalize bug in Vegas 3.0c, but apparently some of you are still seeing it. Even with 250 audio events I am not able to repro. If you are running into this problem, please email a .veg file to

drdropout@sonicfoundry.com

This will help us zero in on the problem-

thanks

There's a good chance we'll need the source media file too.
///d@

SonicDennis<

I'll try to get that information to you soon. Busy day at the university, lots of classes to teach.

Sonic Dennis:

In answer to your questions:

After right clicking, properties, of the normalized flat-lined area, the gain is -inf. After clicking on Recalculate, it goes to -0.1, but shows no change on screen. If I split it and then press recalc, it also says -o,1, with no change on screen.

The build is VV3.0c 138.

The source is Mini-DV tape captured from SONY TRV20 by firewire to your codec. It is listed as Audio2.

Also, why does this thing ask me the same thing EVERY time I open the file. It wants to know if I want to search for clip 001, and I tell it to ignore it and leave it off line. I STILL want to ignore it 20 times later, so WHY doesn't it store this information?

I am sending the .veg-amatic file, as requested, in a separate eMail.

There are 238 consecutive clips in this particular project.

When I make my selection of Select all following, and then normalize all, the change from normalized to flatline always occurs EXACTLY at the RIGHT boundry of the screen. When I scroll over, the FIRST, and many successive clips to appear are flat-lined. This happens no matter WHERE I start on the timeline.

wcoxe1 was kind enough to send a .veg file. I relinked everything to files of the same type on my machine, no repro. At this point I'd like to see if there is anything common to the systems exhibiting this. Media on 1394 drives? Audio and Video card type? OS? Any details you can provide will help us track this down.

You have all that information in my registration, already.

wcoxe1:

Thanks for the info. You're right, that's crazy. Here are a couple of more things to try:

Press F5 to rebuild the peaks for all audio. Now Recalc the flatlined event. Fixed, or not?

If not, right-click on the flat-lined event, pick "Apply Non-Real-Time Event FX", pick something like "Sonic Foundry Dither", hit Add, OK, uncheck the FX so no processing takes place, hit OK. In the Save style dialog that comes up, verify and remember the file name and path and hit OK. It will process the audio, however, since the FX was bypassed, it should be a bit-for-bit exact copy. Now, Recalc on the new Take (the WAV file; turn on "Show active take names" in prefs if you're not sure which is visible, or use the Takes submenu). Fixed, or not?

If not, start a new project and load the newly rendered WAV into it. Recalc. Fixed or not?

If not, mail me the new WAV file <g>. In either case, let me know the results of each step.

Many thanks for your time.
We'll get to the bottom of this.

///d@

In answer to your questions, although my computer is connected to a network, none of my files actually reside on a network. I do not have a 1394 drive.

Question, please: Is there a problem with 1394 drives? I was thinking of buying a Maxtor 160GB 1394 drive. Would you advise against it?

As this is the 4th project in which I have had to completely abandon normalization, I hope you can fix whatever the problem is.

Here are my system specs as requested:

William Coxe


Vegas Video
Version 3.0c Build 138

Computer
Name: OptiPlex GX200

Operating System
Platform: Windows 2000
Version: 5.00.2195 (Service Pack 2)
Language: English
System Locale: English
User Locale: English

Processor
Speed: 1GHz
Class: Pentium III
Identifier: GenuineIntel
Number of processors: 1
MMX available: Yes
SSE available: Yes
SSE2 available: No

Display
Primary: 1024x768x32

Video Adapter
Name: nVidea RIVA TNT2 Model 64
Memory: 16MB
Bios: 2.05.1704

Memory
Physical memory: 261.3 MB
Paging memory available: 631.7 MB
Virtual memory possible: 2,097.0 MB

-=---------------------->

I would advise against the Maxtor firewire 160 GB external. I'm on my 2nd replacement for my 80 GB model. Unless they fixed the cheesy interface card which is junk, it will fail sooner or later IF you plug it in and out and use it between multiple machines. On the other hand if you just leave it sit on your desk and never move it, it will be fine.

Hint: The external drives are RIP OFFS. After my original failing and then the two replacements failing exactly the same way, I got sick of paying UPS fees just to get another one. So, I opened the case, no surprise, just a regular drive inside. I took that put it in a rack ($20) and I have a true portable drive, much cheaper (I just got a 160GB for $240) and it works off your PC's internal power supply.

Way OT, but you make the internal bays sound like a panacea. Just try to daisy-chain a few or hot-swap them.

Still, as I've painfully discovered, there's _something_ wrong with Windows or external 1394 or something. I can no longer play my timeline from external and must use an internal drive bay. Fortunately, my ADS external case is large enough I have a drive bay mounted in it and can still use the drive on other systems.

Thanks BillyBoy and Control_Z

You just made my purchase decision for me. I'm going to wait a generation for that 1394 drive.