Looking for some audio help
Submitted by mjohnson on Thu, 02/08/2007 - 05:47.
Hey everyone,
I'm looking for some audio advice and assistance. I'm very new to editing audio. I can easily trim the dead space and add and remove sections of the recording. But when it comes to compression and normalization I'm just not sure I know what I am doing. I'm letting Audacity do the work with the default settings but wonder if I understood better what was going on if I could do more.
So is there anyone who would like to hook up with me on Skype sometime and talk about audio terms and editing theory sometime?
Or can anyone offer a good online reference on best practices and recommendations?
Thanks,
mjohnson's blog
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Not sure about online
Not sure about online references sorry Michael but I'll definitely catch up with you on Skype and help you out. My former life as an audio engineer comes in handy for podcasting I've found but once you learn a few basic priniciples it's not hard to do. I imagine Scott knows a bit about this as well being a musician who records his own material so maybe he can help as well.
The overiding rule for any audio engineering is that it has to sound right and your ears are the best tools you'll ever have for production. You develop that with expirience, when something sounds right to you you'll just know, it's hard to explain.
A compressor takes the volume and levels it out, this is important particualry in spoken word because people rarely speak at a consitent level. The compressor boosts sections that are too quiet and dims the sections which are too loud. In this way it helps to make editing easier, with lots of people at different volumes it helps balance things out so everyone can be heard clearly. You set a few basic parameters on the compressor such as the average volume you would like, the compression ratio and peak limit. It sounds scary and complicated but really it's not that hard.
I find compression is indespesible to me as an audio producer, in music or spoken word. It's just one tool in the box but an important one. I'll catchup with you on Skype soon and try to clear things up :)
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A puff of smoke and he appears... a little bewildered and in urgent need of munchies... where's the fridge? :) The Human Cloud (Danny Blaze)
Thanks Dan
Scott spent a few minutes with me tonight so I have a little better idea what I'm looking at. I guess I need to play more and see how it comes out.
Scott said compressor as well. I'll try to catch you online sometime so you can share your thoughts with me. The last two shows have sounded pretty good. So I don't feel like I have to do too much. I just like to understand things and I don't feel like I understand audio enough.
Michael Johnson
http://michael.mjohnson.net
No problem :)
No problem :)
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A puff of smoke and he appears... a little bewildered and in urgent need of munchies... where's the fridge? :) The Human Cloud (Danny Blaze)