Sound Check of files?

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Matt1562
Matt1562's picture
Joined: August 6, 2010

Some of my audio files that I load into loop players in audiomulch seem to come in louder than others without having adjusted their volume levels in audiomulch yet. I was wondering if this is just do to the fact that the files had different recording volumes and thus will just naturally be at different volumes when put into audiomulch, and my second question is whether or not there is a way to fix this in mulch, i.e. a soundcheck option of some sort?

-Matt

strunkdts
strunkdts's picture
Joined: July 21, 2009

If you are talking about auditioning samples from windows then yeah, the samples will play at the level that your PC is set at, not that of Mulch.
This is behaviour that needs to be addressed too.
Ideally with a 'media bay' inside of Mulch with volume control for the auditioning of samples/files.

Write up a Feature Request and it may just happen?

Ross B.
Ross B.'s picture
Joined: April 11, 2009

Actually I'm not sure that's what Matt is asking.

Every sound file will be played at the level it's recorded at. You could load them into a wave editor and check that out. Your main options are either to apply some level change outside AudioMulch or to use mixers/gain controls in AudioMulch to level them.

But if, as strunkdts surmises, the main problem is when previewing them in the Open/Select Soundfile dialog box, then yes, the level is fixed at the moment and I agree a preview volume control and/or a 'media bay' like Acid has would be handy.

Ross.

Shannon509
Shannon509's picture
Joined: December 19, 2009

In a good audio editor you could batch process all your files to the same peak level. In cool edit/adobe audition it's called Normalize. Wont be perfect but would put a lot of them in the same ballpark volume-wise. But not really, because recordings with high peaks might barely be adjusted, while ones with low peaks would be amped really loud. Also keep in mind that if you do it to all your files, the ones you have saved in songs will no longer be at the same level they were and you'll have to re-adjust the levels in all your saved Audiomulch projects, or any other projects you use the now-volume adjusted tracks in. And like I say, the volume of each could still vary quite a bit. You could also normalize them, then hard limit them, but this compresses the audio the way they do for CDs to make them the same level as other CDs and it takes the nuance out of the amplitude of recordings, which are actually supposed to vary (hard and soft-played notes, for example) while they are playing. The limiting can also take a bit of your attack/transients or "punch" away.