Question about auto-levels

[Christoffah]

I've searched the forum but found nothing, so hopefully someone can help me out here

I've got a whole CD worth of bass tracks to edit right now, and as it differs from a distorted guitar (which usually has the same/very similar dynamics all the way through), the dynamics of the bass playing is often going from loud-quiet-inbetween-too loud- too quiet, etc. (usually too loud though.)

For about 3 of the songs I've just been using the 'draw' tool in Cubase to get the levels a little more equal, but it's taking far too long and I'm sure there must be a tool/way for Cubase to do this more accurately.

I was thinking that Normalise might do this for me... but then I searched and all of the forummers say that Normalise sucks.

Any suggestions, or do I have to keep using the 'draw' tool? Many thanks everyone

 

[Farview]

A compressor might help, but if the bass players dynamics were off the wall and all over the place, you might have no choice.
Normalising wouldn't change the difference between the loud and soft parts, it would just turn the whole track up.

 

[noisewreck]

Tell the bass player to practice more... then some more again!

 

[tourettes5139]

^^^Ditto!!!

 

[Christoffah]

In all fairness, I was exaggurating a little. It very rarely goes too quiet (once or twice a song perhaps) and only a few times for being too loud. We're only human...

 

[travelin travis]

compress or ride the fader and automate it.

 

[Christoffah]

or ride the fader and automate it.

This sounds good, but I've no idea how I would achieve this :S???

Any chance you can briefly explain where to find it? Cheers

 

[noisewreck]

In Cubase, click on the little "+" in the lower left corner of the track (the area where you see the track name). This will expand the 1st automation lane which is by default set to volume. Then click on the "R" button to enable automation "read". You'll notice the line in the automation lane turn to blue. From there on you can draw in automation curves. If you click on it with the arrow tool it will insert a dot which is a breakpoint, then you can click somewhere else on the line to insert another breakpoint and move it up or down. You'll see that the line ramps up (or down) from one point to another. For finer details you can select the pencil tool and just draw in.

Finally, read on automation in Cubase's Help menu. You'll be surprised how comprehensive it is