Wow what a lot of responses! I expect people to push me a little or give me a hard time when I post here and I've already learned a lot! It's good. The faders are at unity gain because I'm just talking about the beginning pre-mix stage. So too low just means relative to the instrument faders at unity gain, or also it means a relatively small waveform. I learned from the post that it may be just my concepts about how hot the recording should be. I'm not comparing to reference tracks at this stage. That's a good idea not even worrying about the level when I record and yes I'm probably confusing level with volume. Room noise isn't really too much of an issue and I adjust the preamp gain to get as much as I can out of it without noticeable noise. I'll just start recording from further away and see how that works. I thought I was hearing preamp noise but maybe it is ambient like the refrigerator or something and I just wasn't aware of it. I will keep that in mind.
normalize vox?
- Thread starter paresh
- Start date
Random dude
Well-known member
Awesome, man. I'm glad you're taking the advice you're getting in the spirit of how it's meant.
Sometimes, we over think things. The most important thing really is the song and the performance. I've heard some very questionable sounding recordings that are still amazing because the song/performance is amazing. So, don't pull your hair out over every little detail.
Another thing is that the internet is full of people who need to fill their website/Youtube channel/Instagram, etc...with content. A lot of that content is garbage, but they need to put out anything to maintain a following and get clicks. So, we get so much information and misinformation about every little detail that we don't know what to believe. So, we spend more time twiddling knobs than creating actual music.
My advice (and I'm no expert, unlike some people here. I'm just repeating a lot of what I've learned here and through trial and error) is to turn on your DAW, fire up your mic, make sure you're not clipping anything, and record....and have fun. You can always go back and re-record something. Studio time is free.
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TalismanRich
Well-known member
Paresh, it's really interesting to find out how much sound there is in a "quiet" room. I was watching the meter bounce one day, and thought where is that coming from? It was late at night so not traffic, the AC was off and the computer was inside an enclosure. Turned out that I had my 4TB backup drive on and it was the simple spinning that the mic was picking up. Flipping the microphone around put the drive in the null and suddenly the meter was clear.
I'm sure if I was 25 yrs old, I might have be able to hear it, but these days, I miss a lot.
I'm sure if I was 25 yrs old, I might have be able to hear it, but these days, I miss a lot.
Proximity... I think I'm having trouble with that. I tend to cut the bass and stay on top of the mike to maintain a consistent and usable level. But, compression makes it sound too... saturated?
I don't consider myself a singer to begin with lol, but I do want to achieve a more "natural" sound.
I don't know why I never thought to just record myself speaking... Thanks for this!
The closer you work a mic the greater will be the variations in level as you move*. A consequence of the inverse square law. As you can see from my recording it is perfectly possible to record from a foot from the mic and get a decent S/N IN MY CIRCUMSTANCES. ymmv. I believe that with your ribbon mic a foot away and the booster in place you should get a recording at -20dBFS quite easily and with minimal ELECTRONIC noise. Can you do that and post as a 320k MP3 attachment? Then we might all get some idea of the problems?Proximity... I think I'm having trouble with that. I tend to cut the bass and stay on top of the mike to maintain a consistent and usable level. But, compression makes it sound too... saturated?
I don't consider myself a singer to begin with lol, but I do want to achieve a more "natural" sound.
I don't know why I never thought to just record myself speaking... Thanks for this!
Keeping a consistent level for speech over takes practice. For singing you need to develop a good mic technique, backing off for the loud parts. Compressors have lots of parameters and I am not the person to advise you about that.
*Except for heavy rock live when the guy or gal is gob clamped to the grill!
Dave.
Me eating a mic
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Life's Missing Piece - Inspired by a VNORTH lyric @JPFolks
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markmann
Active member
Backing off the mic will actually smooth things out a bit plus eliminate proximity effects. The downside is that you will pick up more of the room sound and any other ambient noises. As you already experienced, you need to crank up your input level which can add noise that in my case is a hissing type sound. I have experienced this recording very quiet instruments with certain mics. To answer your question, yes, there is a way to remove offending noise. I use Reaper which has an excellent noise reducer called Reafir that magically removes most noise with no noticable affect to the recorded track. There are other plugins that do this as well.
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Random dude
Well-known member
How so?
Maybe if you insist on crowding everything to 0dBFS but I have Samplitude set to a default of -6dBFS and don't have a problem.
Dave.
Random dude
Well-known member
Sure, but I think that's a different issue. Crowding everything will kill dynamics for sure, I guess. But the simple act of normalizing is really just applying a volume increase to a file. I don't see how that can kill, enhance, or change anything about the track. But I'm willing to stand corrected if someone can explain it to me. I actually never normalize, so I'm not defending it for any reason. I just don't see how turning the volume up, or down, on a track can affect the actual sound in any way.
Steenamaroo
...
No, you're quite right.
Normalising doesn't affect dynamic range.
You'd need to introduce compression/limiting to reduce dynamics.
Normalising doesn't affect dynamic range.
You'd need to introduce compression/limiting to reduce dynamics.
TalismanRich
Well-known member
There seems to be a lack of understanding what normalization does.
Normalization does nothing to dynamics. It is simply a level adjustment. To prove my point, I have two vocals. The max initial level was -14.7dB below 0dBFS. On one track, I simply raised the fader by 14.7dB and rendered the file. The second I did a normalization of 14.7dB and rendered with no fader adjustment, .
When I load the two files into Reaper and simply invert the phase of one track, they completely null. There is no change in relative level. Dynamics are identical.
Here are the two files:
Normalization does nothing to dynamics. It is simply a level adjustment. To prove my point, I have two vocals. The max initial level was -14.7dB below 0dBFS. On one track, I simply raised the fader by 14.7dB and rendered the file. The second I did a normalization of 14.7dB and rendered with no fader adjustment, .
When I load the two files into Reaper and simply invert the phase of one track, they completely null. There is no change in relative level. Dynamics are identical.
Here are the two files:
Ujn Hunter
Active member
The fact remains that "Normalizing" is completely pointless in this scenario. If the Vocal needs to be "Louder" either raise the Level of the Media Item, or raise the Level of the Fader on the Track itself.
TalismanRich
Well-known member
There are times when it's advantageous to actually see the waveform itself. When doing automation in Reaper, you are setting points, and it really helps to see the exact point where you are making a change. Likewise, when doing a cut and paste, you can more easily see the exact start of a wave, like the transient of a drum strike. While you can "zoom" the waveforms globally, sometimes it's easier to just normalize one track out of a dozen If you only need to work on that one that has different wave size.
Random dude
Well-known member
I honestly have never normalized anything. That's why it's funny that I was sort of on the side of "defending" it. I have never found a use for it, but I also don't see anything destructive about it. But, like you said, I just use my volume knobs and sliders.
Talisman probably makes a good point about seeing waveforms. But, even though I record at what most people would consider "low" levels, I simply expand the view of the waveform if I need to see more of it. So, I'm not saying normalizing is useless, I guess, but I've neve seen a use for it.
Ujn Hunter
Active member
If you have Waveforms completely out of whack with one another... you're doing something wrong when you're recording them. If you can't see your Waveforms (i.e. they are all too small, Shift + Up Arrow in Reaper will increase them until you can see them properly, other DAWs should have similar Waveform functions). "Normalizing" isn't something you should really be doing, it should be fixed at the source in my eyes.