[realmusicians] Re: Questions.

Neal's a great guy.


At 04:51 AM 10/15/2009, you wrote:
I sure love hearing water trikling over rocks and things like that and would find that quite soothing. We have the bott radio on and that sometimes keeps one awake because it gets interesting. 

Steph

At 04:23 AM 10/15/2009 -0500, you wrote:
If it was just me, I would leave it alone. Jerry likes the music running in the background while he sleeps, that and the Bible. I listen to KSBJ, our powerhouse Christian radio station. Also, I like to listen to Neal Ewers's CD of an evening thunder storm. It's just a quiet storm... very relaxing and very well done. Neal is multi-talented! I wish he was here with us. 

At 02:24 AM 10/15/2009 -0500, you wrote:

I just got up over here and am in there now if your up late.
We're still only about a dozen strong, and there are only about 6 people who have made it to the server so far, you me stephie gudrun, Eddie, and my old hippie buddy in Ok who's an old cat who's done this all his life but the old fashioned way, Wayne helped me learn about unatended installs, and a lot about patch bays and studio construction, and such.
Ok, about what you asked, your going to need to use some sort of compression.
YOU really don't want to change different passages by hand, you want the relative volumes and dynamics to stay the same comparitively.
YOU can use soundforge and or sonar for this but the easier tool will probably be soundforge even though sonar might offer some more robust sound sculpting options such as multi-band comp and limiting and more accessible tools, depending on what you want to do. 

But here is something simple to try.
When you normalize a file, if you normalize to peak, everything just goes up together till the loudest peak hits 0 and them stops.
But when you normalize to rms, the operation takes an average value and normalizes to that and then applys compression to squash the peaks down so you don't clip.
The higher the rms value, the more compressed the sound, the less dynamic range it has.
There is a preset in the normalize section which is normalize rms to -16 db music, try that and see if it helps.
YOu can raise the threshhold up or down to taste, and play with the attack and release times of the compression applied, and such, you'll have to use your ears to see what sounds good.
If you do choose to work on sections of the music separately, be sure you make your edit points where there isn't significant information going on because volume jumps in the wave form will most likely cause a pop or bump, something non-musical sounding, so this is why if your dealing with a whole musical piece that is contiguous, I recommend doing one operation on it. 

As always, try and listen before committing to saving it as the master.
Working on sections is much easier when your dealing with speech material as you can get in between words and such, and say you don't have a big wave 0 crossing point mis-matched in the middle of a lovely flute solo, etc.
If you want to do volume changes in the middle of musical passages, especially if they're significant, then sonar and automated mixing by hand with either snapshots or fader movement is your friend. 

But I gather you probably don't want to get that tied up with it.
One thing to note, classical music is supposed to be very dynamic by it's nature.
A lot of folks have a hard time listening to it, because these purist cats expect you to listen to it with the volume cranked on your system trying to re-create the state you'd get at a concert where things can go from a whisper to a roar with the content.
But we want to listen to everything at a background volume while we work and hear everything.
Most pop music and country and modern smooth jazz and such is mixed to be listened to that way, but it doesn't work well on pure classical tracks.
Probably one reason why classical music isn't more popular for just casual listening, but ass with anything, a happy medium can be reached, and you can probably achieve a nice compromise without destroying the feel and dynamics, maybe not for a purist, but for the rest of us 'grin'. 

At 08:19 PM 10/14/2009, you wrote:
My husband is wanting to modify the volume in some classical music he will be downloading to his MP3 player. He wants to get it at a more even level, so the loud parts won't blast him out of bed, and the soft parts disappear altogether. I suggested he use Sound Forge 8. We have the disks, and we can install that easily enough on his computer. Is Sound Forge the proper tool, and what tools within Sound Forge itself would he need to use to accomplish his purposes. I have used it very little, so I can't help him much. I went to the Team Talk server to see if anyone was there. There is not a sign of life. 




                Sandy Licht
Turn right, then go straight!

        Jeremiah 29:11-14 (Amplified Bible)
11For I know the thoughts and plans that I have for you, says the Lord, thoughts and plans for welfare and peace and not for evil, to give you hope in your final outcome.
12Then you will call upon Me, and you will come and pray to Me, and I will hear and heed you.
13Then you will seek Me, inquire for, and require Me [as a vital necessity] and find Me when you search for Me with all your heart.(A)
14I will be found by you, says the Lord, and I will release you from captivity and gather you from all the nations and all the places to which I have driven you, says the Lord, and I will bring you back to the place from which I caused you to be carried away captive. 


                Sandy Licht
Turn right, then go straight!

        Jeremiah 29:11-14 (Amplified Bible)
11For I know the thoughts and plans that I have for you, says the Lord, thoughts and plans for welfare and peace and not for evil, to give you hope in your final outcome.
12Then you will call upon Me, and you will come and pray to Me, and I will hear and heed you.
13Then you will seek Me, inquire for, and require Me [as a vital necessity] and find Me when you search for Me with all your heart.(A)
14I will be found by you, says the Lord, and I will release you from captivity and gather you from all the nations and all the places to which I have driven you, says the Lord, and I will bring you back to the place from which I caused you to be carried away captive.

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