Matching recording level of one song to another

[villain fan]

I am wanting to take backing tracks that I perform with at bars and match the sound level in Cool Edit Pro. For instance, the bar already has a bunch of Karaoke backing tracks that they use with their house band. I am wanting to acquire more but, I want to make sure they are the same sound level as the others so that I'm not constantly turning the volume up and down depending on the song that's being played. I have the files for the tracks the bar is using already. Is there an efficient way for me to match the levels on the new files to the old ones? Should I use normalize or compression? Any thoughts would be appreciated.

Thank you

 

[JMac52]

You could try a Gain plug-in on the channel with your track. Make any course adjustment on the plug in and use the channel fader and your ears while you a/b with the reference track. Then bounce your track.

J

 

[Strryder]

Using group waveform normalize is probably your best bet to do it as automatically as possible.

 

[bouldersoundguy]

Cool Edit Pro isn't really the best tool for this. I would use a DAW rather than an editing program.

Get Reaper. Load all the songs into a track. Hover your mouse over the top edge of each block of audio (an "item") to grab the "Item volume" bar and even them out by ear. Since you can only go down with the Item volume control you may want to insert a mastering limiter on the track to bring them all up to whatever level you need. Ctrl-double-click a block of audio to select that exact time range and render it out to a new wave.

 

[Runaway]

Good luck with that

Having been there and done that you will very quickly work out that the 'volume' levels and the perceived volumes of two songs will vary dramatically.
Among other things this is due to the instrumentation used in each song so you could brickwall limit every track to the same setting and not only will each track NOT sound the same volume but the order in which you play them will also impact how loud each track is perceived

The best 2 instruments for this job are tacked onto the side of your head but if I had to use a plugin to get me somewhere in the ball park I would suggest Steve Slate Mastering plugin

 

[Mr Clean]

For .wav you could try WaveGain

For .mp3 try MP3Gain

Both FREE programs and easy to use.

I have used the mp3 one in the past for a load of files for my wedding music rather than hiring a DJ. The guests chose the music and I mixed them into one continuous file. Mp3Gain worked really well.