+Sapele Steve .. thanks man, I really appreciate you saying that. I'm going to be uploading some more tutorials.. been out of the picture for a bit.. but back at it again. cheers. Glad the video helped. Happy Recording and mixing.

coz theres not many musicians

@@Glenn55H I liked your clear explanation and friendly voice, keep making vids like these

@@spectralspecies Thank you for watching and for your comment.

thank you Michael Crowe

Glenn...KZfaq Audio is a mystery...I use the exact same audio effects as a friend in the U.S.....yet his audio always sounds between 3 and 5 dB louder...Here is another interesting fact.(1)..when I post the video to Vimeo the audio levels are spot on but the exact same video on YT are 3 to 5db lower.....Fact (2) when I play my recorded KZfaq video back through the Google Browser on my phone ..audio levels are correct but when I play the same video through KZfaq App audio levels decrease by 3 to 5 db....Any observations or fixes for the above would be appreciated...

Hey Michael, ... interesting isn't it ... the variables of media online. I think one of the reasons why YT vids have lowered your audio may be as a result of it's new audio level standards that it's trying to put in place. I have no idea how 'loud' your tracks are, but if the RMS is too loud, YT will auto adjust the level to fit within it's audio standards... from what I've heard anyway... and iTunes and other media are apparently doing the same thing. It would seem that those who are uploading with levels too loud are getting dialed back while levels that are too low are getting dialed up .... but I don't know if this is true, as I keep coming across vids that have to be turned up - then down for an ad .... then up again for the content ... crazy. If we simply uploaded our tunes at approx. -12dB to -14 dB RMS with a peak level of around -1.5dB our experience here would be a lot better... less frustrating on the ears. Unfortunately, the average Joe or Jane doesn't know what level to reach for, or how to go about doing it... leaving it up to the Corporate clan to handle it.

Michael, it would be really interesting to see what happens when you and your friend use the exact same source file, compare levels in your DAW's then process with the exact same effects and exact same 'settings' then measure level readings again, to compare, then export the files and either put on YT and OR bring the file back into Audacity or DAW, and measure the level of the exported and re-imported files... that would be an interesting comparison as well.

im having problems like how can i increase very huge vollume without changing the damn quality.. everytime i do it with DB on the left or amplify up-right.. it just increases the whole thing the bass is heard like electric and ruins parts of the track damn

Changing The Matrix ... yes, it will help to attain optimum levels when you know what your 'target' levels are with respect to Peak and RMS. Thanks for watching, and I'm glad this was helpful. Glenn

Trini bago - Glad the video helped. Thanks for watching.

The reason for taming 'some' of the highest peaks before limiting, is to make the limiter not work so hard. Audacity's native 'hard limiter' vst does not do well at making transparent limiting, and leaves artifacts and even distortion to some files. For this reason I use other brick wall limiters... one of my favs is Kjairhaus "Classic" Limiter and compressor, but there are many others that do equally as well at handling 'hard' limiting. I usually use the compressor for individual tracks, then use the limiter for the final mix after compression and EQ etc are nailed down.

@@Glenn55H "making transparent limiting" AHAHAHAHAH good joke.

TheAcousticRoom .. glad it helped. Glenn

intuitiv.me .. so glad it helped .. thanks for watching and for letting me know it helped. cheers Glenn.

DJ BigMac209 hey, glad you enjoyed the tutorial. Thanks for watching and for your comment.

Thanks for the feedback, much appreciated. Glad it helped. Happy editing. Glenn

Thanks for watching. cheers. Glenn

MrRizo23 Very good question. Yes - I suggest you have a good compressor in your tool kit (Audacity's on board compressor isn't that great, unless they've updated it lately) and use the compressor to do some of the initial taming of peaks and the compressor's 'make up gain' output can be set to bring the overall levels up so that the signal is just below clipping by a couple of dB ... then look at the file and LISTEN to how it sounds.. making sure you like the way it's handling the signal ... especially when there's a hard percussive sound, like a snare or kick drum and listen to the way it behaves .. does it rebound after the sound kicks in? You don't want it to sound like it's breathing or pumping.. use your ears.. go back and re adjust if need be.. then when happy with the mix.. you can then add the limiter *use a good brick wall limiter .. not the 'hard limiter' in audacity..it's not that great of a limiter .. then when you have the over all sound set.. you can then use 'normalize' to -2dB which will give 2 dB headroom to the file, so that if you convert it to mp3 etc.. it won't clip upon conversion. Once converted, bring the file back into audacity and measure the file making sure it is still LESS than 1 dB below "0" dB.. no clipping... you're all set. hope that helps. Glenn

Hello, thanks for your question. For me, I find it useful to have the allow clipping 'on' by default, so that ANY audio I import will show clipping in red. If and when this happens, I go to the amplify vst, and lower the files volume just below clipping point... so that I now am working with an 'intact' file. Now the process of lowering peaks manually will come into play as shown in the video.... when ALL peaks are below "0" and let's say you've now got 1.5 dB of 'free space' or headroom above the largest peak in the file, you can now raise the files' volume ... check RMS and continue lowering peaks to gain more headroom and repeat, or if you've achieved the desired RMS (LKFS) then you're good to go. I hope this helps. Thanks for watching. Glenn

Thank you

nice, different ways of doing it ... thanks for watching. Glenn

+NumptyButtkick hey NB, good question. When I have an extended file (2 hours or more) I still look through the entire file for the 'loudest' or tallest peaks. Once I identify those, I lower them and then apply the limiter to the whole file. If you want to skip manually lowering peaks, you can just apply the limiter, but the limiter will have to work harder to process the file, and if peaks are limited too much by audacity's 'hard limiter' you can end up with artifacts - unwanted distortion occurring and bad sound where the peaks were not lowered first! I hope this helps. Also, you can try the "Kjaerhaus Classic Master Limiter' free download, which is a very good sounding limiter. Cheers.

You can get the the "Classic" Series from Kjarhaus and Voxengo Span Analyser for free download online. Sorry I don't have current links.

Paul Swearengin .... I understand, in a time constraint, it can be burden to try to tame each and every rogue peak in a longer file ... in that case, you could simply look at the entire file and only reduce the worst offenders that peak the most. Then, you could take the compressor and apply a ratio of say 4:1 as a starting point and apply that... then see if that reduced any of the peaks further... if not, then undo, and reapply the compression to a ratio of say 8:1 to see if that grabs more of the peaks... you can also increase the threshold as well. Once you applied the compressor to tame the peaks , then you can apply the Limiter to further tame the variances in loudness. This would only take a few minutes from start to finish. I hope this helps. Glenn

@@Glenn55H I found Auphonic online. That might do what levelator used to do for me. Much easier process. Thanks for your input.

Those are plug ins I've gathered over time... mostly free ... many have been suggested by other musicians in forums etc. Some are just for specific use, once in a while. Remember, it's not how many tools are in the tool box, but how well you can use the few you have - branch out into new tools after learning how to get the most out of those you already have. Having said that, audacity's original plug ins weren't all that great, so it kinda forced me to look for other effx that did what I wanted. like the Classic Master Limiter from Kjaerhaus... and the compressor... love em. cheeers.

not that I can recommend, since I don't use a Mac.. however, if you google a bit, you'll find a variety of free limiters out there for Mac.. for a simple interface you may want to try 'loud max' although I can't vouch for it's effectiveness or transparency of sound.

H-Pizzle, when you have way too many peaks from transients that come from percussive instruments etc, you should use a good compressor on the offending tracks. Audacity's on board compressor isn't all that great, but there are lots of freee ones to grab on the net. The compressor will tame the peaks while giving a bit of boost to the signal too. You really want to get the RMS up to a good level without over cooking the file. A finished and mastered track may have a peak level of -1dB while the RMS might be at around -12dB after using a compressor and a limiter in the process. I hope that helps.

That's a good question, considering the time it may take to go through all the tallest peaks in a track. Since the track signal shouldn't be clipping, clip fix isn't needed, We're just 'taming' the loudest peaks to create the headroom so we can increase the gain of the track before applying a limiter. In this way, the limiter won't have to work as hard and you end up with a more natural result (depending on limiter settings) and it lets you squeeze even more loudness into a track without artefacts like clipping and distortion. I appreciate your question, and thank you for taking the time to watch and to comment. cheers.

+joshkeatley good point.. the reason for taming individual peaks, especially the highest or loudest peaks, is so the limiter won't have to work as hard to process the signal. The result will be a more transparent mix, while boosting levels RMS wise. I hope that helps. cheers

Haha, now that I am more advanced in audacity. I understand why to do this. Hard limit takes away your peaks and makes all your peaks sound the same. Definitely not good if u have too many peaks and yeah I use this method all the time now! Thanks!

excellent! glad you have a handle on the process now. I still tame the 'tallest' peaks by hand, even in a 2 hr. mix ... to tame the worst offenders, then apply the limiter from there, as shown in the vid. Glad it's helped you, Josh. Happy editing and mixing. cheers.

I use his method but I'll just set an overall reduction for all peaks. Even with a lot of peaks, a whole song might take ten minutes tops to knock them all down. Then I go in and do EQ, compession etc. Believe me it's worth it. It's much better than the limiter because you keep the overall dynamics by not squashing the hell out of them in one click. Much smoother sound too.

sorry I missedyour post, ... you can find all kinds of free plug ins and vst's .... Try Kjarhaus Classic Compressor and classic Limiter... Glaceverb has a nice Reverb .... and try the REA plug ins from cockos... verrry nice plugs. I hope that helps... ask away, if I can help with anything else.

Yes you can do that. The point of this video is to show that by lowering the largest peaks in the file FIRST, you can get headroom to raise the levels.. so that when a limiter IS added, the limiter won't have to work as hard, and the overall sound will be better. Thanks for your comment and for watching. cheers. Glenn

@@Glenn55H Question, laving 6 db headroom for the master engineer dates back to DAT tapes and is said to be unnecessary in this modern day and age; my question to you is how much headroom you would require to master a track and how much headroom needs to be left in the end (as you reinserted 2 db back at the end of this video, whilst the track could have kept it, what am I missing here)?

@@spectralspecies Thank you for your question... and it`s a good one. Yes, the practice of leaving some headroom in your stereo mix so that when it comes time to master the track, there will be `room` to apply vst`s that will add gain, EQ enhancement, Limiting, etc etc... even in today`s digital mixing and mastering, headroom is still needed. Why? Well, if you only left say 2dB of headroom, then applying vst's etc would only allow up to 2dB of gain to be applied to the signal, which isn't enough to 'play' with in order to bring the loudness up to a specific predetermined amount. So that means one would have to apply a 'negative' gain to the file... (lower the overall volume of the track) so that vst's can be applied without going over "0" DBFS .... so either you 'mix' the gain accordingly and leave about 6dB headroom for mastering, OR you lower the mixed file by approx. 6dB so that mastering can be applied. Either way... headroom is needed for mastering. As for the 'final' lowering of the mastered file by approx. 2dB - this is done so that the master file can be converted to mp3 later ... without 'clipping' which can easily occur (down the production line) when the 'conversion' process is being done from wav to mp3 if you upload to a platform that requires mp3. .... the 2dB leaves enough room in the 'peaks' of the file WITHOUT affecting the true 'loudness' of the file, the RMS is the 'actual' loudness of the track .... that's why you make the overall RMS about 2dB hotter while limiting (in instances where the limiter being used is applying gain and normalising the file to "0" DbFS, ) and then dial back the output so the file ends up about 1 - 2 dB below "0" ... if your limiter can adjust the parameter of it's 'output' then you can simply adjust it so output reads -1.5 to -2dB .... then in that case one doesn't need to reduce the files gain later. The main thing is, .. is not to leave the file normalised to peak at zero or you are asking for bad sound when it comes time to convert the file to an mp3. I hope this makes sense, and I thank you for your interest and for your question. Glenn

@@Glenn55H Again a great asnwer Glen, many thanks for taking the time to clarify in depth!

There's a few different ways to approach this, depending on the nature of the 'sss' sound. You can reduce it by using 'gain reduction' to the point that it can disappear - or use a tool called a 'de-esser' vst plugin which does about the same thing automatically. You can also use an equalizer tool in audacity to reduce the sss sounds from speech or vocals in music. If it's a HISSING sound of 'sssssss' in the back ground then noise reduction tools may be helpful. I hope this helps... I'd be happy to discuss in more detail. cheers Glenn

@@Glenn55H thanks, I am using now de esser it works great!☺️

+Mekratrig The limiter will 'normalize' the gain to just shy of "0" dBFS, and you want to export the file with at least 1 dB of headroom.

Acrually, you make a very good and valid point... there ARE limiters out there that you CAN adjust the 'output' peak level of a signal ... so in that case you CAN dial back the output so the mastered file comes out at about -1.5 ish .... no need to reduce file gain later. In this video however, the limiter being used 'normalises' the signal to just shy of zero ...so reducing the gain must be done after the fact. Thank you for your comment.

You have to download the plug ins ....check the kjaerhause site. or other sites for the plug ins you like. vst's

That's what I thought was the easy solution... I was wondering why he didn't use that method

yes, that is the 'easy' way. The idea of this video was to show how lowering peaks manually FIRST, then applying the limiter, will lead to a cleaner mix since the limiter won't have to work as hard to 'tame' peaks... since you already did most of the work. Audacity's hard limiter squashes peaks really badly, causing artifacts in the squashed signal....so lowering the tallest peaks first will help minimize those nasty effects. I hope that makes sense. Glenn

@@peebrainfreakshow6710 check my reply to David. cheers. Glenn

@@Glenn55H thanks. it's tricky with my wife's singing bc her voice is VERY dynamic. goes from very quiet to very loud.

@ mangreat71 - If you follow the steps above, but apply the volume changes to broad sections of only the 'loudest' parts of your audio, you will eventually see that you have 'lowered the entire track and NOW you can raise the entire VOLUME or gain of the track, so the softer parts are now louder. Yes, this can be tedious so tools are available to speed the process of lowering loud parts and raising soft parts of an entire track or tracks. This can be addressed by using a compressor on your audio tracks. I personally don't use Audacity's built in compressor or limiter as I dislike the performance and results with these, - I prefer a few other vst's including the Kjarhaus Classic Compressor, and or the Kjarhaus Classic Master Limiter to process tracks to not only boost low level material, but to tame the peaks at the same time - this may be a tool you'll want to become familiar with, so read up on what these do to enhance audio. Compressor for single tracks, Limiter for the 'mixed' stereo track, which will boost the overall signal yet again, while suppressing louder peaks. There are lots of free vst's out there to play with. FYI, ... A compressor is basically like having a very quick hand on your volume control of your audio .... raising it and lowering it according to the audio level... but it does it so you can't 'notice' it.. when it's set up properly. I hope this helps.

And will this eliminate most of the clipping ? And I'ma try it soon as i go home by following the steps ?

If you have audio that was clipped as it was recorded, then reducing gain on those sections will NOT fix the clipping. Try an audio 'de-clip tool - which will reconstruct the audio by replacing flattened transients with restored pointed peaks,in the audio wave form. Some de0clippers do a better job that others, so I'd suggest you try a few til you find the one that you like the best.

Good question, and I mentioned to someone else who asked the same thing.. it's a lot easier on the limiter if you go in manually and reduce the worst of the worst offenders.. those peaks that are several dB taller than most of the wave form... in this way, you reduce the amount of work the limiter has to do, and the result is a more 'natural' sounding file.. the limiter can then be used on the entire file to tame the smaller differences in peaks and there'll be less artefacts due to less processing. .. if that makes sense to you. The hard limiter in audacity is not very forgiving and makes some unpleasant artefacts.. but if you have a really good 'brick wall' limiter you may be able to get by just fine with that.. this is just the way I do it, and there are many ways of processing the audio .. do what works for you and your work flow. Thanks for watching. Glenn

Hey Greg, version 2.1.0 has 'amplify' as the first tool in the effects menu in audacity. As far as I know, it's been in all the updated versions. Thanks for watching, have a good one... anything else I might help you with , just holler.

Hey Neiley - Sure you can contact me at the email address on the About Section here on my KZfaq channel.

yep.. get the lame encoder for exporting as an mp3 guys. Thanks for posting this. cheers. Glenn

These tiny peaks being lowered won't make your music sound worse. :')

@@AnnaVannieuwenhuyse Except you're wrong because you don't know what that limiter actually does and because it's not just tiny peaks that aren't being flattened here. Music isn't mixed and mastered by looking at a bloody waveform, it's mixed and mastered with your ears, and if you can't hear the damage that this is doing then there's no point in continuing this discussion. - Best regards, Live and studio sound engineer of 15+ years

@@Anvilshock I'm also an audio engineer, from a different generation perhaps. I've learned that listening is important, and especially when my eyes agree.

@@AnnaVannieuwenhuyse Right.

Loudness is not the same as volume. Google it