EQ question

[Behappy]

Hi,
am very glad to find a place where I can talk about my fave tools !

now I havea question :
I have been creating a live CD set with mixed live appearances,
sounds and dynamics of each file I intend to mix are from different sources thus the final level when I have all the files stuck up together (separated by short studio recorded snippet) don't sound homogeneous.

Is there a way with Cool Edit I can have the same frequency and overall sound level, I mean, all the tracks sounding as if they were recorded during the same session or so, and not those differences I have ?
Shal I use one track as the reference one ?

I hope someone wil give me a clue

[dobro]

EQ: there's no way you can apply one EQ setting to all of the tracks and expect them to sound like they were recorded in the same place using with the same tracker. I mean, think about it. Let's say one song is really bassy and another song is really trebly, and you apply some treble boost to everything. The bassy song is gonna have some highs it didn't have before (maybe) but the trebly song is gonna have super hyped highs and sound like crap. No - you're gonna hafta listen to each song one by one and decide what to do with it - you're gonna hafta use your ears.

Sound levels: one way to deal with this is to listen to just the vocal track on each song. Solo the vocal track in each song. Also, you can look at the meter in Cool Edit when you're doing this to see where it's hitting. By adjusting the level of just the vocals in all the songs RELATIVE TO EACH OTHER, you can get a really quick referencing of the overall levels of all the songs to each other. Make sense? You could, for example, make sure that the vocal track in each song is hitting at -12 dB: adjust the overall level of each song so that all the vocal tracks are hitting
-12 dB. Of course, I would vary it, depending on the song: I'd adjust levels so that the vocal on a quiet song was hitting at -14 or -15 maybe, and so that the vocal on a screamer was hitting at
-9 maybe. But again, if you're gonna do this intelligently, you have to listen to and adjust each song, one at a time.

[Behappy]

Hi and thanks for the answer
I was considering working by ear, but I thought there could be some function in CEP that could have helped out.
I tried the overall normalize function to get same level in one tracker, it works, but I have to be carefull with the level cause sometimes it may compress some frequencies (like drums etc...)
thanks again !

[perottol]

About EQ: check out Steinbergs FreeFilter (a DirectX plugin). It does something like: listen to source, listen to destination and match EQ. It works very good (but is a bit expencive). You can then deside in percent how much of these eq-settings you will apply.

After matching and applying EQ to the tracks you can just line up the tracks in multitrack view and adjust wave block volumes to get a good controll of the levels.

Per-Otto

[Behappy]

Thabks Per-Otto !
I guess this plug in can be bought online, I'm gonna check this one, thanks for the info

[PapillonIrl]

A direct x spectral analyser would help. This would help you see what frequency content each mic had, and thus which frequencys needed to be adjusted to make it nearer to your template mix in feq. balance.

[formerlyfzfile]

Your not going to be able to make all of the tracks sound EXACTLY like they are from the same source or recorded at the same time.

You could try the same CONVOLUTION algorithm (Effect>Special>Convolution) if you can generate or obtain an impulse of a specific suitable place....and apply it to all of the tracks to add similar characteristics to each.

But I think you will make a more effective compilation by taking the time to carefully assemble the tracks in a way to make the transitions between tracks the most musical.

This does not mean they have to sound the same but one track might transition better into the next with a long crossfade, the next might sound best with a clean 2 second break. One might work with a short filter sweep along with a medium crossfade.

You will spend more frustrating hours trying to change the sound of what's already recorded rather than work with the sounds you have and make the best use of them.

When I was in collage I was into making mix tapes for parties, for friends, and for multi-dorm-room-simultaneous-playing-soundscapes.
I would use album songs, radio, live interviews, tv, live music and short snippets of indeterminate sounds to put these mixes together.

I did it with only cassette recorders but the principle was that it was all about making the best fit with the pieces I was using.
Not all pieces fit so not all pieces were used.

Sometimes the proccess may require judicious "nudging" of the sound of the tracks but more often its more about putting the right sounding tracks next to each other....and quite possibly leaving some out.

-mike