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RE: Audacity

Posted by tketcham (A) on December 23, 2022 at 05:43:06

In Reply to: RE: Audacity posted by tketcham on December 22, 2022 at 17:21:10:

If you're interested, here are the functions I use in Audacity to edit my digital recordings. I try to keep things fairly simple and not get bogged down in trying to make the recordings perfect and each LP side is kept as a single track; I don't split out songs.

Open LP WAV recordings: One file for each side of an LP.

Ctrl/Shift-F to view full waveform height.

Leave in default Linear view for now. I find it easier to see amplitude peaks.

Delete needle drop and run out sections.

Visually check files for loud peaks and use AMPLIFY to reduce the extreme peaks so they're closer to average max peaks. If a loud pop escaped the declicker process I use AMPLIFY to reduce them to below audible level. Sometimes it's better to split the stereo track to edit one channel and then join them back to continue editing. I don't spend a lot of time here because the LIMITER function can take care of the isolated max peaks.

Change to dB view. I find it helps to better visualize the perceived volume level.

Use LOUDNESS NORMALIZATION in Perceived Loudness mode with a setting of -15 to -18 LUFS depending on the dynamic range of the recording. I find that -16 LUFS is my default starting point because -15 LUFS often ends up with way too many clipped peaks and -18 LUFS is often too low to better match (but not equal) the amplitude levels of ripped CDs and hi-res downloads. Sometimes I'll use AMPLIFY to decrease the volume level of a specific song within the track (one with lots of max peaks) to allow for a higher LUFS level overall. (I'll also increase the amplitude of really soft songs within the track. Guilty as charged.)

I find it handy to check amplitude levels for comparison using the Measure RMS (analyze) function. Plus or minus -19.0 dB seems to be a reasonable target.

Use the LIMITER function to remove the scattered clipped peaks that often show up. (I used to spend too much time trying to reduce the amplitude of individual peaks but LIMITER does this automatically.) You have to be careful not to overdue this but LIMITER lets me increase normalization just a bit to get the overall recording closer to digital music levels. I use Soft Limit to -0.30 dB settings. It keeps it to below the 0dB clipping limit and seems to avoid overload problems with the DACs I use.

Export to 24-96 FLAC, adding basic metadata here. I use dBpoweramp to do final metadata editing and adding cover art.

Maybe TMI but that's my process and I've been happy with the results.

Tom

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