Originally Posted By: Lloyd S
Charlie / Guitarhacker:

Do your comments refer to songs you are working on as background for recording or for "live" playing??
I have created tracks that eventually made their way to stages in Church auditoriums, Ball fields, School auditoriums, homes and vehicles. I have not played 'live' with tracks but I've had my tracks played 'live' with bands and singers.

As per Notes' "insights", I seldom do any compressing but, like him, I'm using my MP3s for playing "live". If it's a BIAB or RB file, I'll record it using Audacity and do the normalizing there before exporting as an MP3.

I use this process on every track I create that makes it past the 'Erase' Button. It may change now that I've revealed that fact, but prior to today, I do not recall any comments regarding compression or normalization issues. I get comments on where a vocal sets in a mix, poor instrument panning and poor vocals and lyrics but nothing on normalization.

If the file has just one or 2 wild spikes, I use the Effect > Amplify function to tame them.
Yes, this works well for reducing spikes but not to amplify a track. I've found in my mixes, this method can also raise the noise more dramatically than compression. If your noise level is 5% on a track that's recording at 95% there should be no issue. But if your recording level is 45%, your noise level is still 5% and amplification makes the noise worse in your mix. Noise will also rise with compression but at a more proportional rate making it less noticeable than amplification I've found.

If there are many spikes (say drum hits), I go back to the original BIAB/RB file, and tweak the track(s) to better fit in the mix.

I try to take care of most spikes during mix also. I normalize as the final process. Mixing is complete. To normalize, I use compression to enlarge the waveform just enough so that when I normalize, there is a very small reduction in the waveform. For my ears, this is a very slight but very proportional adjustment. I've always considered it to be a very transparent operation.
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I'll let you know how I make out with MP3Gain.

LLOYD S

Last edited by Charlie Fogle; 04/20/16 07:14 AM.
BIAB 2025:RB 2025, Latest builds: Dell Optiplex 7040 Desktop; Windows-10-64 bit, Intel Core i7-6700 3.4GHz CPU and 16 GB Ram Memory.