Need help and critiques for these mixes please! -Sound Forge - PC

Subject:Need help and critiques for these mixes please! Posted by: ChristopherBlue Date:1/8/2002 3:21:18 PM I have been using GoldWave to edit some WAVs and I wish to raise the volume of the music. GoldWave will let me raise the music's levels so it covers the whole dynamic range via Maximizing to 1.000 or I can raise the RMS. I checked the RMS of a few other unrelated songs that had a "normal" volume and their RMS was ~.1800. Should I Max or RMS? Both? Which one first? Doesn't boosting the RMS make a song "muddy"? Basically I want to raise the volume a bit but retain maximum clarity and have the best file for the speakers to amplify themselves. On a side note, my Cambridge SW FPS2000 speakers don't seem to get very loud. Also, is it safe to leave the subwoofer at maximum? It has been that way for nearly as long as I have owned it although I regularly use my headphones for listening. edit: Oh, and is it best to fade-in/fade-out before or after maximizing/RMS'ing? Some time back I aquired all of the ripped tunes from Ultima IX. They were fine and dandy 'cept that they were obviously setup to loop from inside the game plus their volume was quite low. A few months back I used Creative Wavestudio to double the length and remove the "pop" with a manual crossfade, amplify, and fade in the front, fade out the back of "Trinsic Positve". I was pleased with the results but did not bother to work on the others. I re-did a few tracks and upon a sample listen, someone remarked of the low quality of the music. I have since obtained a ripper program for U:IX and have obtained direct WAV file rips of the tunes to work with. With Wavestudio off-limits (WinXP and Creative's lame charging policy for thier software) I switched to GoldWave. For these two sample tracks, I have tripiled them in length and added a 10-second fade-in/fade-out. Also I have boosted both of their RMS values from .0653 to .1800. The difference between them is that the second one's maximum volume has been boosted to 1.000 while the other's has been left alone at .5830. Here are some points I am looking at although any criticism is welcome: 1. Is tripling enough? Should I Quadruple or bring it down to a double? 2. Hear any pops or major artifacts? 3. How is the volume? 4. Does the 10-sec fade-in/fade-out suit you? Is it proper? 5. Which one sounds better? The non-volume maxed or the volume maxed? Thank you! P.S. I actually bought the U:IX enhanced soundtrack. It was OK, but I really wish they had put all of the audio tracks on the CD instead of putting in "Making of" stuff. Note: Files have been converted into loss-less Monkey's Audio compression to preserve sound quality. Go to the http://www.monkeysaudio.com to get the codec and WinAmp plugin. http://www.personal.psu.edu/users/c/w/cwg113/Ambrosia.ape Ambrosia http://www.personal.psu.edu/users/c/w/cwg113/AmbrosiaMaxVol.ape AmbrosiaMaxVol

I have been using GoldWave to edit some WAVs and I wish to raise the volume of the music. GoldWave will let me raise the music's levels so it covers the whole dynamic range via Maximizing to 1.000 or I can raise the RMS. I checked the RMS of a few other unrelated songs that had a "normal" volume and their RMS was ~.1800.
Should I Max or RMS? Both? Which one first? Doesn't boosting the RMS make a song "muddy"? Basically I want to raise the volume a bit but retain maximum clarity and have the best file for the speakers to amplify themselves.

On a side note, my Cambridge SW FPS2000 speakers don't seem to get very loud. Also, is it safe to leave the subwoofer at maximum? It has been that way for nearly as long as I have owned it although I regularly use my headphones for listening.

edit: Oh, and is it best to fade-in/fade-out before or after maximizing/RMS'ing?

Some time back I aquired all of the ripped tunes from Ultima IX. They were fine and dandy 'cept that they were obviously setup to loop from inside the game plus their volume was quite low.

A few months back I used Creative Wavestudio to double the length and remove the "pop" with a manual crossfade, amplify, and fade in the front, fade out the back of "Trinsic Positve". I was pleased with the results but did not bother to work on the others. I re-did a few tracks and upon a sample listen, someone remarked of the low quality of the music.

I have since obtained a ripper program for U:IX and have obtained direct WAV file rips of the tunes to work with. With Wavestudio off-limits (WinXP and Creative's lame charging policy for thier software) I switched to GoldWave. For these two sample tracks, I have tripiled them in length and added a 10-second fade-in/fade-out. Also I have boosted both of their RMS values from .0653 to .1800. The difference between them is that the second one's maximum volume has been boosted to 1.000 while the other's has been left alone at .5830.

Here are some points I am looking at although any criticism is welcome:

1. Is tripling enough? Should I Quadruple or bring it down to a double?

2. Hear any pops or major artifacts?

3. How is the volume?

4. Does the 10-sec fade-in/fade-out suit you? Is it proper?

5. Which one sounds better? The non-volume maxed or the volume maxed?

Thank you!

P.S. I actually bought the U:IX enhanced soundtrack. It was OK, but I really wish they had put all of the audio tracks on the CD instead of putting in "Making of" stuff.

Note: Files have been converted into loss-less Monkey's Audio compression to preserve sound quality. Go to the http://www.monkeysaudio.com to get the codec and WinAmp plugin.

http://www.personal.psu.edu/users/c/w/cwg113/Ambrosia.ape Ambrosia
http://www.personal.psu.edu/users/c/w/cwg113/AmbrosiaMaxVol.ape AmbrosiaMaxVol