background volume up

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zuzu

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Hi everybody,

I have a song which were recorded into only 1 track. The volume of the singer is too high and the others volumes (like drum, bass, guitar, sax...etc) are so low.
Is there a method to "repair" the song? If its possible please describe which szotfver can make it and how.

Thanks a lot!

zuzu
 
Is it a stereo or a mono track? If it's a mono track there's not going to be a lot you can do *neatly*, because they are all on one track, and one cannot neatly and cleanly "unscramble an egg". There are some limited "sloppy" things you can do, though. If you can get a hold of a used copy (because they are no longer sold new) of either Elemental Audio's Neodynum or Roger Nichols Digital's Dynamizer, they let you compress and expand tracks by volume "zones".

You could also try Adobe Audition's spectral editor to try and remove as much vocal from one copy of the track as possible while leaving the other stuff in there, and then add that back to a copy of the full, original track to bring up the other stuff while leaving the vocal the same volume.

If you're kind of a rookie to this kind of stuff, though, both tools and techniques will have quite a steep learning and practice curve to them. Even for the experienced, the procedures are not easy, and for anyone, neither of them will be perfect. There's no such thing as an Easy Button for this problem.

If it's a stereo track, and the vocals are panned center with most everything else panned off of cente, you could use a mid-side processor plug (Voxengo has a free one) to temporarily put the center stuff on one channel and the L&R stuff on another channel. Then you can adjust the volumes of them separately and re-integrate them into there original stereo panning.

G.
 
Another procedure that might help a little - and with most DAW software would require no extra plugs - would be to:

1. make a copy of the track and polarity invert the copy.

2. Drop the overall volume of the inverted copyt just enough to make the low-level stuff very quiet while leaving the voice mostly audible.

3. (optional) Gate the low-level stuff as much as possible without removing any more of the voice than you need to.

4. Sum/combine that processed copy back with the original.

This should have the effect of reducing the volume of the vocal by more than it reduces the volume of the rest of the stuff. This would help balance out the volumes a bit. How well it works, though is entirely dependent on how effectivelythe gate can separate the voices, which probably won't be all that well. But it's worth a try or two.

G.
 
Hi,

Thanks for your prompt response!
Just a simply question: which DAW software do you prefer?

zuzu
 
Hi,

Thanks for your prompt response!
Just a simply question: which DAW software do you prefer?
They all do the mostly same things in mostly similar ways. It really depends, IMHO, on which one you get used to using.

G.
 
I am using Soundforge and Cool edit pro. I am not familiar what DAW means exactly, I am new in this nice forest.

zuzu
 
Nothing wrong with either of those. I use Sound Forge all the time, and have also used CEP plenty in the past.

"DAW" is just short for Digital Audio Workstation, a fairly generic term for just about any hardware/software used for editing and engineering digital audio. Both SF and CEP can be called types of DAW software.

G.
 
Many thanks Glen for your support!

I will try to fix my problem. If I have some questions I will come back.

Thank you again!

zuzu
 
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