how to find the high volume level in the graph ?

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Michael REMY
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how to find the high volume level in the graph ?

Post by Michael REMY »

hi,

i wish tu maximize the volume of a song but i already use the maximize feature at default (100% ).
there is somewhere in the song , a peak which avoids the maximizing to work well !
my eyes can't see that peak unless i zoom in all the graph and search...which is timeless....

is there a feature to auto-zoom on the second who contains the peak ? of a visual icon to show me where it is ?

Best regards

Image
TinPanFan
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Location: Texas

Re: how to find the high volume level in the graph ?

Post by TinPanFan »

You were almost there. When you use MaxMatch, the dialog box contains the track times for both L and R at which the max value is reported.

I don't remember how to post the image, but just do that: bring up the track and use MaxMatch. You'll see the times of both channels' max values.
DougDbug
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Re: how to find the high volume level in the graph ?

Post by DougDbug »

I think what you really want is compression/limiting. Effect -> Compressor/Expander. There are presets for Reduce Peaks and Reduce Loud Parts. After reducing the peaks you can Maximize again.

Dynamic compression (unrelated to file compression like MP3) reduces the dynamic range (AKA "dynamic contrast") by making the loud parts quieter and/or the quiet parts louder. Normally it's used to make "everything louder" by reducing the loud parts, followed by 'make-up" gain to bring-up the overall loudness (as I suggested above).


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It's your file (music?) so of course you can do whatever you want! But music is supposed to have loud and quiet parts. Virtually all commercial music has some compression and a lot of current/modern music has the "life compressed out of it". (My opinion... I like musical dynamics.)

Dynamic expansion (making the loud parts louder or quiet parts quieter) is rare in audio production except for a Noise Gate which reduces (or totally silences) very-quiet parts.

Limiting is a kind of fast-compression where just the peaks are "pushed down" and again it's most-often used with make-up gain to make everything louder. (Audacity doesn't have a separate limiter effect.)

Automatic volume control (AVC) is a kind of very-slow compression. GoldWave's version of automatic volume control is called Auto Gain.

...Note that for some settings, GoldWave gets the terminology "expansion" and "compression" mixed-up but the preset descriptions are correct so that's the best place to start depending on what you want to do.
TinPanFan
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Re: how to find the high volume level in the graph ?

Post by TinPanFan »

All true, Doug, but looking at the waveform it's quite possible that there's a single spike or two around 3 mins that, if reduced, could allow MaxMatch to boost the rest by 2 or 3 db. I do this quite often (not so much on commercial tracks, but on some of the stuff I recorded off-air some years ago).

While I accept that sometimes dynamic compression can enhance a recording, in general what I want to hear is what was performed (of course I'm talking about real, performed music, not the computer-generated random noise sold today as "music.")

We agree that the dynamics of the performance should be the dynamics of the recording.
DougDbug
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Re: how to find the high volume level in the graph ?

Post by DougDbug »

If you set the compressor threshold to -3dB then nothing below -3dB will be touched. But you may have to compromise between the threshold and the multiplier.

Or you might try Audacity (free). Audacity's limiter has a hard-limit setting and it has look-ahead so it can limit to -3dB (or -2dB, etc.) without distorting the waveform and without affecting anything else.
Michael REMY
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Re: how to find the high volume level in the graph ?

Post by Michael REMY »

hi,

thnank you for your replies, but i think i explain bad my desire (i'm not natural french). i will redo again :

I would just need a feature which said : "the spike higher volume is located at 3min15 in your track"

i have a song from a CD, as a FLAC file on my computer.
The volume is very low during all the song, i want to maximize it.
Usually, i do the maximize feature at 100% and it run fine.

but in this song, there is a moment, a very tiny short moment, maybe 1s or less, where the singer really sing high, so the maximize feature doesn't run because it detected the spike level and do not maximise the other part of the song (which is logical).

so, i want to find (visualy) this spike to select it and lower his level, so i would able to maximize the whole song.

Sometime, when the spike is obvious and long enough, you can see it with you eyes on the graph, so it is easy to select it, but, due to zoom factor, sometime i can't find it with my eyes.



I hope i explained myself better...
stephen22
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Re: how to find the high volume level in the graph ?

Post by stephen22 »

Select All then click on Maximise (once). The information will be in front of you.
Michael REMY
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Re: how to find the high volume level in the graph ?

Post by Michael REMY »

super feature !

i beg my pardon, i use it since almost 5years and i never take the time to read what was in the list.
ok, there is the higher left and right time in the list !

nice ! very useful !

when we click/dblclick on the items in the list, nothing happen.
right click offer me to copy the time into the clipboard.
then ? after ?
i check the edit menu, and there is no feature to go to this time just by past the time into a field .

Ok, now i get the information, i can go there myself, but it would be pretty help to go there from the maximize dialog window by one click; at least a auto-zoom on the moment or an auto-select at +/-1s around the spike (left or righ or both)..

Thank you all for the help.
GoldWave Inc.
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Re: how to find the high volume level in the graph ?

Post by GoldWave Inc. »

You could try the Edit | Find command to find peaks (or pop/clicks). That will allow you to zoom in as well.

Also you can use View | Specify to zoom in at a specific time (from Maximize).
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