-=PCTechTalk=- Re: audacity/editing audio recorded from cassette to hard drive to CD

Cristy,
    See below.

Peace,
G

"The only dumb questions are the ones that are never asked"

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "cristy" <poppy0206@xxxxxxx>
To: <pctechtalk@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Wednesday, June 25, 2008 10:52 PM
Subject: -=PCTechTalk=- audacity/editing audio recorded from cassette to 
hard drive to CD


> Hi Gman,
>
>
>
> I uploaded another screenshot.  With screen shot "4", am I looking at two
> tracks?  Left and right, I know it is recorded in stereo.  If so which is
> the bottom one?  I know I can split tracks to mess with each separately 
> with
> the solo button.  My other question is "note how much skinnier the wave 
> line
> is on the bottom track"  does this mean the top track is a better/stronger
> recording than the one on the bottom and if so how/should I use the 
> stronger
> one or just do a mix tracks and they will be ok?
>



    Let's discuss terminology, which is what I think you're looking to do, 
anyway.  The term "track" is used to describe two different things, 
depending on who you're talking to.  Some use it to describe a single song 
or tune within a collection (for example, some CDs contain 'bonus tracks' 
which were not on the original LP).  Others will use the term to describe a 
single channel within a song mix (for instance, the lead vocal track would 
not include anything other than the main vocal).  As a general rule which 
whould be completely ignored if there is any confusion, a DJ uses the first 
definition while a recording endgineer will use the second definition.  I 
usually think of what we musicians do as both, so I am probably the cause of 
your confusion.             lol

    So, let's talk like Amateur Audio Editors and define some terms for 
ourselves.  You are looking at both "channels" of a stereo feed.  The top 
waveform is the left channel and the bottom one shows the right channel. 
The right one is obviously lower in volume than the left one, so a direct 
"solo" comparison will not give you an apples to apples review of what's 
really available to you.  So, select the entire right channel and increase 
its volume until it looks to be about the same as the left channel.  Then, 
you can use the solo buttons to switch back and forth between the two and 
decide which one sounds best.  Since cassette tapes are inherently noisy 
beasts and we just raised the volume on one side of it, that now louder 
right channel will probably also contain louder hiss than the left channel, 
making it the worse sounding of the two.  If that proves to be true, you 
will most likely want to delete the right channel and focus all of your 
efforts on editing the left channel until you're as happy as you can get 
with it.  At that point, select and then Copy the entire edited left channel 
and paste it over into the right channel to mirror the edited performance. 
Assuming the app hasn't messed up the sync between the two, you'll now have 
the same exact sound coming from both left and right channels, which is what 
you will want in your finished product.



>
> I experimented with labels last night but think I came to the realization
> that that only works if you are creating a project file as far as saving 
> and
> using it unless somehow you import a txt file of it.  I decided to "can" 
> the
> labeling for now, not to label the can lol..so to speak.
>



    Labels does sound like a proprietary utility that would only work if you 
were using their "Projects" format.  Since breaking them up into individual 
tracks is one of the very last things I do, I don't bother with it.  Bsides, 
I prefer to do that part of the editing manually so that I remain completely 
in coltrol of where the 'breaks' are placed.



>
> Of note, I did try playing each wave (top and bottom) as solo to hear if 
> one
> sounded better or stronger than the other and could not notice right off
> even though one wave was much bigger looking. Ok, I think the top
> wave(track) is the left one, and the bottom is the right?  Don't ask me 
> how
> I thought that but..
>



    It helps to have really, really good headphones or studio quality 
monitor speakers connected to a seriously good amplifier.  Without those 
things, you'll have to do a lot of jumping back and forth with the Solo 
button before you'll be able to hone in on subtle differences between the 
two.  It does get easier over time as your critical hearing improves.



>
> Somewhat of an annoyance.every time after I do a generate silence edit, 
> the
> view changes on me to real big looking wave and I have to click view 
> normal
> and scroll back to the song/place where I was editing.  seems if I just
> click on the zoom tool (+) a few times it takes me back.  I also see why 
> you
> think I may need a bigger computer screen now.
>



    That seems like an odd quirk.  Maybe there's another way to do the same 
thing that doesn't cause that problem.



>
> I imported the wave that had all my completed transitions and created
> several waves from it , one for each song.  Some of the songs were louder
> than others.
>



    If the source was consistent, that shouldn't happen.  Of course, you're 
dealing with a source that contains a live audience and their volume 
fluctuated depending on the crowd mood at any given moment.  I also read 
somewhere that you're applying Normalization to these files, but I don't 
understand why.  Normalizing a CD's worth of tunes is only used to try and 
make their respective volumes as similar as possible and should only be used 
when the sources vary.  Your source is exactly the same for all tracks, so 
no Normalizing should be needed.  It is probably the reason why they no 
longer have the same volumes.



>
> I am now wondering how do I balance out the volume so each song plays the
> same volume when they are being played on the CD.  Did I have to split 
> them
> into separate files seeing as all I really did was work on transitions
> between them and use normalize effect on them?  Was there a way to just 
> save
> as multiple waves, I need to look at that I know we discussed it some and 
> I
> thought it would be better the other way.
>
>
>
> http://www.kristalusers.net/viewthread.php?fid=2&tid=3877&action=printable
>
>
>
> ok, found the above line about normalizing and about leveling out the
> volume, will look into it.
>



    Some folks (including you) seem very confused as to what Normalization 
is for and what it can do for you.  To simplify things, imagine you're a 
radio DJ and have been assigned to play records from 6 - 10 PM on a Friday 
night.  Assuming you can get in an average of 10 songs per hour (in between 
news, sports, weather and commercials), you'll end up playing about 40 tunes 
for your audience.  That's 40 songs, each from a different CD (source). 
There is no way that each one of them is going to have the same volume level 
as all the rest, so, you have to pay attention at the beginning of the song 
and manually adjust the volume to best match what the station wants flowing 
over their airwaves.  Of course, the equipment you're includes a meter of 
some sort to help guide you with this, so you raise or lower the volume 
gradually (you don't want to make it obvious to the listeners, right?) until 
the meter is hitting the proper line.  When the next song starts, you do it 
again.  And then again on the next one.  Etc., etc., etc. ...

    This is the function of the Normalization control in your editing app, 
except that it happens instantaneously before the music even hits the 
speakers.  If all of the files you're playing with are all from the same 
recording, there should be no reason at all to even think about using it.



>
> Ok, I normalized each song wave to -3db (would have done it before I split
> my file up but did not know).  Anyhow, burned a CD with the songs, the 
> songs
> played, transitions were ok.  But too much distortion for me on almost all
> of them, not horrible sounding but not what I want.  The songs also had a
> bit of a tin can sound quality.  Not horrible at all but definite room for
> improvement, esp. the distortion.  I am thinking maybe when I recorded it
> from the cassette, I had the volume set too high which usually happened 
> with
> recording cassettes, or perhaps it was that way originally.  Do not think
> the normalizing did it but could take that out.  Any suggestions for less
> distortion and better quality sound?  I did not think I heard that much on
> the computer.
>
>
>
> http://www.icompositions.com/forums/viewtopic.php?p=50322&seenIEPage=1
>



They should all sound the same since you applied the same mount of 
normalization to all of them.  Unfortunately, that may also be where extra 
distortion was added.  For the best edits, practice ripping stuff to your 
hard drive using a variety of volume settings.  Ideally, the loudest ripping 
(recording from cassette deck to hard drive) volume should be just below the 
clipping level to minimize the effects of tape hiss and to give yourself as 
much headroom as possible.  Once recorded, bring a copy into the editing app 
and apply some noise reduction to try and reduce the tape hiss further and 
bring out more of the music and audience noise.  If you're working with a 
monophonic source, you should then compare the two sides of the track to see 
if one sounds better than the other (raise the volume of the weaker side as 
necessary, but NEVER reduce the volume of the stronger side for this test). 
Then, work with the better sounding side.  However, if you find that your 
source contains drop outs (places where the magnetic material holding onto 
the data has fails so you hear a dead spot during playback), consider 
merging the two channels in the hopes that all dead spots will be filled by 
the other side.  This may end up producing more noise than you want, so 
again, experiment to find the best results. 


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