TheRealWaldo
New member
Did cool-edit lose it's 'normalize' feature in new versions or something?
Good place to start...
W.
Good place to start...
W.
chrisharris
King of Bling
Dude, it's like you're speaking Chinese. What is "normalize?" - lmao.TheRealWaldo said:
. That is SSSSooooooo CEP1.2a.Yeah, it's there. But you know damned good and well we're living in the age of 14 layered compressed limiting, right? Speaking of distorting the crap out of music, I swear, some of the stuff I'm listening to right now is so fucking loud that I can't even turn up my little "WINAMP" player past "1" after listening to other mixes on "10." Has anybody listened to the Audioslave CD? MY GOD, I swear, and this is no exaggeration, it hits the meters an average of 10db louder than any other commercial mix in my changer right now, and it's totally distorted? This thing is selling millions, and it's complete sonic fraud. I haven't done it yet, but I know that if I open this up in CEP, I'm gonna' see nothing but GREEN with zero black backround, and a bunch of wavs that are literally flat on top zoomed in at maximum res.
I'll be back, lol.
chrisharris
King of Bling
Right now, there's a "mastering engineer" driving around southern california right now in a new Jaguar who's probably getting patted on the back by deaf record label executives who did THIS to music.
I call it, "Shear Brilliance." (get it, shear? like sheared off with a...oh, nevermind).
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I call it, "Shear Brilliance." (get it, shear? like sheared off with a...oh, nevermind).
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Attachments
chrisharris
King of Bling
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Girlnezz
New member
check your email
chrisharris
King of Bling
The file you sent is already totally hyper-compressed so much that it's BREATHING. Every breath of air is so loud that it's clipping. I can't do anything with this.Girlnezz said:
If you had the original recording, I could punch it up (master) for you, but this thing is more screwed up than the Audioslave stuff, lol. I can't undo compression like this.
I can tell from what I've got that it's a pretty cool track, and the recording didn't sound too bad from what I can tell, but it's beyond my help now.
Sorry.
TheRealWaldo
New member
The one I used to use simply brought it up to absolute maximum for the recording, or whatever dB limit you set, by simply normalizing it to the 'loudest' peak in the track, thus Zero distortion, other than a slight quality loss if the track was recorded really low.
I haven't exactly been keeping up since my gear was thieved, but I'm slowly building my collection back up! I've actually got a US-224, a VERY cheap mic ($45 CDN), and Cubase VST now, so I might start recording again once I get a few more things... lol
W.
I haven't exactly been keeping up since my gear was thieved, but I'm slowly building my collection back up! I've actually got a US-224, a VERY cheap mic ($45 CDN), and Cubase VST now, so I might start recording again once I get a few more things... lol
W.
chrisharris
King of Bling
Then She Sent A Cleaner File...
(we traded files again, and I took a run at working with it a bit)
Girlnezz - I'm glad you like it. I basically just stuck with the things you mentioned in your original post...(1) reducing the noise; (2) bringing out the vocal; and (3) making it louder. Since you posted it here, I stuck solely with CEP. Of course, the file I worked on was just an mp3, so you need to work on the original....Hopefully, you'll be able to just copy what I did (from this post) and do it yourself to the original wave file.
Noise - The noise was pretty much in 2 areas (it almost always is); Real high, and real low, lol. As you know, the high end noise (hiss) was pretty loud. I know it wasn't that loud when you tracked it, but it got A LOT louder when you compressed something somewhere along the way...(I'm guessing it was your vocal track). First, I should say that if you've tracked everything pretty well, you should never have to use any of the "noise reduction" or "hiss" settings in CEP...However, none of us ever do, lol...Many times, a light setting on the "hiss reduction" feature (under "noise reduction" in the Effects tab) will do the trick. In fact, if you just select "light hiss reduction," I think you should still pull the slider down at the bottom of that window over to the left until you get a balance between hiss reduction/Loss of clarity and Hiss/fewer artifacts. In other words, the heavier the hiss reduction is, the more "digital crappy noise" you're going to get, along with a loss of clarity in the highs. So use as little hiss reduction as you can get away with. This is one thing I try to do with headphones on...it's just easier to hear the super high end (hiss and artifacts) with the cans on.
Okay, that's the general rule...use hiss reduction instead of noise reduction when you can, and use as little as possible to avoid the artifacts that you'll hear if you play around with it a bit.
On yours, there was so much hiss, that using either the "hiss reduction" or the "noise reduction" alone would have made for way too much "artifact" noise, so I had to do 3 things:
1. Low Pass Filter (a.k.a. "High Cut") - I used one of the "scientific filters" in the "Filter" section of Effects...and I cut it off at (*gulp*) 11,000Hz. All a low pass filter is, is a kind of EQ, only it's just got 2 ways of dealing with a signal...it either comes through, or it doesn't. The "low pass" filter lets everything beLOW some frequency to "PASS"...(confusing term to me; I prefer "Hi Cut Filter,"...but anyway)...it' cuts the highs off...in this case, I cut them off at 11,000 Hz....If anybody else reads this, DO NOT DO THAT NORMALLY, b/c that's cutting a bunch of high end lol...(Most commercial mixes have a dropoff at around 16K, b/c we really don't hear very much above that.
2. Then I did the hiss reduction on the preset "light hiss," and then I found an area in the file that still had hiss in it, and used it as the profile for the 3. "noise reduction" feature, which I ran on the lowest possible setting with the slider all the way to the left. It's in the help file, but just know that while the "hiss reduction" just works depending on which setting you choose in the hiss reduction window, the "noise reduction" feature requires you to get a "profile" of the noise that you wanna' cut...basically, you have to show the software WHAT noise it is that you want it to get rid of, and it will. You do this by finding and highlighting half of a second (.5 seconds) of the file in some area where there's no music (i.e., only hiss, or whatever noise it is). DO NOT HIGHLIGHT THE WHOLE FILE AND USE THAT AS THE PROFILE, lol...b/c CEP will assume that the entire file is noise, and your tune will be turned into a random series of digital "bells" sounds, lol. (I did that the first time I used it). Just find some tiny segment that's got hiss (and ONLY hiss on it, and highlight it, then select "noise reduction," then hit the "get profile from selection" button, then hit "okay," and it will clear up that tiny segment that you've selected. Now you highlight the entire song and choose noise reduction again, (but do NOT hit the "get profile" button, b/c it will already have the profile that you gave it, so just hit "okay," and it'll perform the function. (again, the help file is good on this)...
Summary of Hiss reduction
1. Low Pass filter at 11K
2. Light hiss reduction
3. Noise reduction on the lightest setting possible.
Now, the OTHER noise in the track was stuff like a mic getting hit, or you breathing too hard into the microphone, causing those "boom" sounds....(low end noise). Stuff like doors slamming and "P"losives (when you track a vocal without using a pop filter)...SHOULD be taken care of on the individual tracks by using a HIGH PASS filter (yes, the opposite of the LOW PASS filter)...it allows everything HIGHer than a given frequency to PASS through the filter...(low cut is what it is). On the individual vocal track, you SHOULD run a HIGHPASS filter over it with the cutoff at about 80Hz, so it cuts out anything below 80Hz (subsonic crap) that ended up on your vocal track. Obviously, I didn't have your individual vocal track, and I did NOT wanna' run a HIGHPASS filter over the entire mix, b/c it's hiphop, and it HAS to have some pretty low stuff in there...Anyway, wherever there was a plosive or some other BOOM type noise, I highlighted it and just filtered that noise...I actually used the Parametric EQ for this, centered on 50Hz, I think, with a reduction of -10db, then I just moved the center around a little with the slider until I could hear the noise pretty much go away... LOOK IN THE HELP FILE FOR PARAMETRIC EQ if you have to go this route by surgically killing the nasties on the whole mix, but again, it's best to just filter the vocal track if you have it.
BRING UP VOCAL - The 2nd file you sent me was definitely better than the first, but there was still a lot of compression on the mix. Now, if somebody compresses an entire mix with one compressor setting (i.e, doesn't use a multi-band compressor) then 9 times out of 10, the result is going to be that the low end of the mix is going to be overblown, b/c the "attack" and "release" and "ratio" settings for bass compression are different (or SHOULD BE different) than the same values when compressing the a vocal. Bottom line is, the low end, much of which was subsonic (i.e., shit you feel, but can't really hear), was ROBBING a lot of the space in the mix that would otherwise be available to stuff that you WANT to hear (like vocals), so I took it out.
Used the Parametric EQ again, with a "Q" of 2, and a pretty extreme reduction of -10db, centered @50Hz again...then I slid it around with the slider until the vocal became clearer and more apparently loud. (I also used a preset for "mackie mid boost," but this is specific to this mix...don't use that thing normally, lol).
Multiband Step Skipped
Normally, at this point, I would have performed multiband compression on the whole mix by splitting it into 3 bands with the frequency splitter in the multitrack, and compressing each band with different attack, release, and ratio settings based upon my ears, but I just couldn't use anymore compression on this mix and still sleep at night, lol...so I skipped this and went straight to the Hard Limit. There's a whole other thread or two in this forum about the frequency splitter, so hit that when you start getting comfortable with the basics of CEP. Better yet, use a multiband compressor plugin or outboard unit ($$expensive$$)
Hard Limiting - By the time I'd taken a lot of the low end out of the mix, the overall volume had dropped quite a bit...I think I used the "Hard Limiter" (Effects --->Amplitude-->Hard Limiting) like I described in my first post in this thread with an input gain of 4 or 5 db, and a ceiling of -.5db (note the decimal point there).
BIG PICTURE FOR YOUR MIX
1. Low Pass Filter
2. Hiss reduction
3. Noise Reduction
4. HIGH PASS FILTER ON THE VOCAL TRACK (if you have it) or Parametric EQ the low end noises/plosives/sonic booms by highlighting just the areas where the booms are...
4. EQ out the lows (Below 100Hz) and/or low mids (100Hz to about 400Hz) (parametric EQ) until the vocal comes up in the mix;
5. Mackie Mid Boost (also in the Parametric EQ)
6. Hard Limit so that the overall mix never goes over half a db below clipping (-.5db) with the input gain on 4 or 5.
_____________
Keep in mind that this is from memory, so if you try some specific number I've listed, and it sounds wrong, don't use it, lol. Your ears are your guide...have fun!
(oh, you should post the before and afters so that people can flame me for pretending to know what I'm talking about)
The End.
(we traded files again, and I took a run at working with it a bit)
Girlnezz - I'm glad you like it. I basically just stuck with the things you mentioned in your original post...(1) reducing the noise; (2) bringing out the vocal; and (3) making it louder. Since you posted it here, I stuck solely with CEP. Of course, the file I worked on was just an mp3, so you need to work on the original....Hopefully, you'll be able to just copy what I did (from this post) and do it yourself to the original wave file.
Noise - The noise was pretty much in 2 areas (it almost always is); Real high, and real low, lol. As you know, the high end noise (hiss) was pretty loud. I know it wasn't that loud when you tracked it, but it got A LOT louder when you compressed something somewhere along the way...(I'm guessing it was your vocal track). First, I should say that if you've tracked everything pretty well, you should never have to use any of the "noise reduction" or "hiss" settings in CEP...However, none of us ever do, lol...Many times, a light setting on the "hiss reduction" feature (under "noise reduction" in the Effects tab) will do the trick. In fact, if you just select "light hiss reduction," I think you should still pull the slider down at the bottom of that window over to the left until you get a balance between hiss reduction/Loss of clarity and Hiss/fewer artifacts. In other words, the heavier the hiss reduction is, the more "digital crappy noise" you're going to get, along with a loss of clarity in the highs. So use as little hiss reduction as you can get away with. This is one thing I try to do with headphones on...it's just easier to hear the super high end (hiss and artifacts) with the cans on.
Okay, that's the general rule...use hiss reduction instead of noise reduction when you can, and use as little as possible to avoid the artifacts that you'll hear if you play around with it a bit.
On yours, there was so much hiss, that using either the "hiss reduction" or the "noise reduction" alone would have made for way too much "artifact" noise, so I had to do 3 things:
1. Low Pass Filter (a.k.a. "High Cut") - I used one of the "scientific filters" in the "Filter" section of Effects...and I cut it off at (*gulp*) 11,000Hz. All a low pass filter is, is a kind of EQ, only it's just got 2 ways of dealing with a signal...it either comes through, or it doesn't. The "low pass" filter lets everything beLOW some frequency to "PASS"...(confusing term to me; I prefer "Hi Cut Filter,"...but anyway)...it' cuts the highs off...in this case, I cut them off at 11,000 Hz....If anybody else reads this, DO NOT DO THAT NORMALLY, b/c that's cutting a bunch of high end lol...(Most commercial mixes have a dropoff at around 16K, b/c we really don't hear very much above that.
2. Then I did the hiss reduction on the preset "light hiss," and then I found an area in the file that still had hiss in it, and used it as the profile for the 3. "noise reduction" feature, which I ran on the lowest possible setting with the slider all the way to the left. It's in the help file, but just know that while the "hiss reduction" just works depending on which setting you choose in the hiss reduction window, the "noise reduction" feature requires you to get a "profile" of the noise that you wanna' cut...basically, you have to show the software WHAT noise it is that you want it to get rid of, and it will. You do this by finding and highlighting half of a second (.5 seconds) of the file in some area where there's no music (i.e., only hiss, or whatever noise it is). DO NOT HIGHLIGHT THE WHOLE FILE AND USE THAT AS THE PROFILE, lol...b/c CEP will assume that the entire file is noise, and your tune will be turned into a random series of digital "bells" sounds, lol. (I did that the first time I used it). Just find some tiny segment that's got hiss (and ONLY hiss on it, and highlight it, then select "noise reduction," then hit the "get profile from selection" button, then hit "okay," and it will clear up that tiny segment that you've selected. Now you highlight the entire song and choose noise reduction again, (but do NOT hit the "get profile" button, b/c it will already have the profile that you gave it, so just hit "okay," and it'll perform the function. (again, the help file is good on this)...
Summary of Hiss reduction
1. Low Pass filter at 11K
2. Light hiss reduction
3. Noise reduction on the lightest setting possible.
Now, the OTHER noise in the track was stuff like a mic getting hit, or you breathing too hard into the microphone, causing those "boom" sounds....(low end noise). Stuff like doors slamming and "P"losives (when you track a vocal without using a pop filter)...SHOULD be taken care of on the individual tracks by using a HIGH PASS filter (yes, the opposite of the LOW PASS filter)...it allows everything HIGHer than a given frequency to PASS through the filter...(low cut is what it is). On the individual vocal track, you SHOULD run a HIGHPASS filter over it with the cutoff at about 80Hz, so it cuts out anything below 80Hz (subsonic crap) that ended up on your vocal track. Obviously, I didn't have your individual vocal track, and I did NOT wanna' run a HIGHPASS filter over the entire mix, b/c it's hiphop, and it HAS to have some pretty low stuff in there...Anyway, wherever there was a plosive or some other BOOM type noise, I highlighted it and just filtered that noise...I actually used the Parametric EQ for this, centered on 50Hz, I think, with a reduction of -10db, then I just moved the center around a little with the slider until I could hear the noise pretty much go away... LOOK IN THE HELP FILE FOR PARAMETRIC EQ if you have to go this route by surgically killing the nasties on the whole mix, but again, it's best to just filter the vocal track if you have it.
BRING UP VOCAL - The 2nd file you sent me was definitely better than the first, but there was still a lot of compression on the mix. Now, if somebody compresses an entire mix with one compressor setting (i.e, doesn't use a multi-band compressor) then 9 times out of 10, the result is going to be that the low end of the mix is going to be overblown, b/c the "attack" and "release" and "ratio" settings for bass compression are different (or SHOULD BE different) than the same values when compressing the a vocal. Bottom line is, the low end, much of which was subsonic (i.e., shit you feel, but can't really hear), was ROBBING a lot of the space in the mix that would otherwise be available to stuff that you WANT to hear (like vocals), so I took it out.
Used the Parametric EQ again, with a "Q" of 2, and a pretty extreme reduction of -10db, centered @50Hz again...then I slid it around with the slider until the vocal became clearer and more apparently loud. (I also used a preset for "mackie mid boost," but this is specific to this mix...don't use that thing normally, lol).
Multiband Step Skipped
Normally, at this point, I would have performed multiband compression on the whole mix by splitting it into 3 bands with the frequency splitter in the multitrack, and compressing each band with different attack, release, and ratio settings based upon my ears, but I just couldn't use anymore compression on this mix and still sleep at night, lol...so I skipped this and went straight to the Hard Limit. There's a whole other thread or two in this forum about the frequency splitter, so hit that when you start getting comfortable with the basics of CEP. Better yet, use a multiband compressor plugin or outboard unit ($$expensive$$)
Hard Limiting - By the time I'd taken a lot of the low end out of the mix, the overall volume had dropped quite a bit...I think I used the "Hard Limiter" (Effects --->Amplitude-->Hard Limiting) like I described in my first post in this thread with an input gain of 4 or 5 db, and a ceiling of -.5db (note the decimal point there).
BIG PICTURE FOR YOUR MIX
1. Low Pass Filter
2. Hiss reduction
3. Noise Reduction
4. HIGH PASS FILTER ON THE VOCAL TRACK (if you have it) or Parametric EQ the low end noises/plosives/sonic booms by highlighting just the areas where the booms are...
4. EQ out the lows (Below 100Hz) and/or low mids (100Hz to about 400Hz) (parametric EQ) until the vocal comes up in the mix;
5. Mackie Mid Boost (also in the Parametric EQ)
6. Hard Limit so that the overall mix never goes over half a db below clipping (-.5db) with the input gain on 4 or 5.
_____________
Keep in mind that this is from memory, so if you try some specific number I've listed, and it sounds wrong, don't use it, lol. Your ears are your guide...have fun!
(oh, you should post the before and afters so that people can flame me for pretending to know what I'm talking about)
The End.
rustyfingers
Member
Thanks for all the info MR Harris...
Very helpfull.
Dennis
Very helpfull.
Dennis