Newbie on compression

  • Thread starter Thread starter obrienaj
  • Start date Start date
O

obrienaj

New member
I was talking to a radio DJ friend about my first efforts to use Cool Edit Pro at the radio station and how my voice levels seemed all over the place. He suggested that I go to Compression , choose 4:1, and then select "Normalize" and my entire recording (or the portions I select) will be an a nice even, costant level. I just tried this at home with AA 1.5 and wonder if I did not listen to him carefully enough. I can see that the compression selection does something but Normalize just appears to be returning back to the levels before I selected Compression.

:confused:
 
You have to set the compression threshold so that the compression is doing something. Set it so that it is the level of the quiet parts. After the compression, use the normalizer to bring the overall volume back up.

There are plenty of threads that discuss compression, do a search and you will get more onfo than you need.
 
He was talking about 2 different things. First, do the compression. If you're just doing voiceovers, try out one of the extreme presets like "vocal,' which is a ridiculous amount of compression, but it works okay for straight speech. THEN, after you've squished the hell out of the track with compression, normalize it to 100% to get more overall volume. All normalization does is take the loudest point in the track and bring it up to 0db, along with the rest of the track. So if after compressing, the loudest part in the track was at -7db, and then you normalize the track to 100%, then all of it will come up 7db.

If the levels are really "all over the place," then one of CEP's vocal compression presets really might work out better than a 4:1 at some unknown threshold, lol.
 
Thanks, now I understand. I am actually not mixing voice over music, just adding my solo voice for annoucements between music cuts, still getting used to the mic levels in the studio and did find my audio was often too high or too low. I'll experiment some more but will also compress/normalize for a more even sound.

Andy
 
My understanding was that you should normalise before compressing so the settings you use relate to a standard initial level. Of course if the file is hitting zero in the first place, it's already normalised so don't bother. That's not to say that you shouldn't normalise after as well, for the reasons given above, although if you get your settings right that shouldn't be necessary?
 
ozpeter said:
My understanding was that you should normalise before compressing so the settings you use relate to a standard initial level. Of course if the file is hitting zero in the first place, it's already normalised so don't bother. That's not to say that you shouldn't normalise after as well, for the reasons given above, although if you get your settings right that shouldn't be necessary?
Click to expand...

Well, I'm REAL NEW at this stuff so I compressed and then normalised, seem okay.
 
There is no reason to normalize before you compress. Remember, 10 years ago there was no such thing as 'normalizing' but compression has been around since the 1950's.

If your signal is a little low, just turn down the threshold to match it. That is what the threshold does.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top