recording
when i burn anything to cd, it always comes out very very quiet! how can i fix this? Any suggestions?thanks
Very quite compared to what? If you rip the wave from the CD and compare it to the original is it any difference, lower in volume, no change? If no change then the problem isn’t burning to CD. There may not be a problem at all if the original wave sounds the same as the ripped wave. The problem may be that the wave needs a little mastering and nothing more.
If you are comparing your CD to the apparent volume of other commercially created CDs then you may be comparing to waves that have been smashed flat to make them sound as loud as possible, even at the risk of ruining the sound. There’s a recent thread about that issue.
What are some more specific symptoms?
sorry,
i am refering to when i record a (.sng) file then create a mixdown (.wav) then i use bladenc to create the mp3.
whenever a create the mp3 it always comes out so quiet.
especially when burning to cd
hope that clears it up a little
thanks
There’s all kind of things that could cause this.
Here’s a few thing you can do to find out exactly where the signal is weakening, and possibly improve it.
First I would check your burners speeds.
If it’s an older burner it probably only has one or two.
But it’s been my understanding that the volume of a disk can be effected by the speed of the burner, and the speed of the computer. Finding the proper burn/processor speed can be tricky, and usually results in a couple of coasters till you get it right.
Once that potential problem is eliminated it’s onto the whole bit rate collamity.
When you create a MP3 inside Ntrack(my version 2.3 anyway) I think it’s like 256k or something.
I use a program called dbpoweramp for all conversions. It allows you to convert at 320kbs. This might help you, dunno.
Now the third and final area to work on, is compression.
As phoo has suggested, you need to compare the original file and the burned file to each other. That means take the burned file and exstract it back into wav. form, and bring it into Ntrack with the original and look at the wav. to see if they LOOK the same.–if they don’t you need to do the for~mentioned suggestions.
However, if they do look the same (same height ect) then your problem might just be lack of compression.
The original file might just be quiet and need to be compressed a little to bring the overall volume up.
One thing to remember, as phoo has mentioned.
A burned CD is never going to have the same volume as a bought CD.-NEVER! because of the reasons phoo mentioned.
But with a little trial and error, and alot of lurking and learning, it is possible to get a CD burned of your own music that you can at least hear!
Hope this helped. BTW there are alot of more knolwegable people here so hang in there, if you still have problems just keep posting and someone will get to ya.
keep trackin’
jerm
Have you tried normalizing the wave file after mixdown? Open it with a sound editor (Audacity/Sound Forge/etc…) and normalize it to 0. This should make the loudest point in the wav file 0db and everything else proportionally louder (yes, even the noise).
Try a smidge of compression/amplification if the RMS levels are too low after normalization.
This is controversial subject, so prepare for a series of diatribes about the evils of normalization. Puts on flame resistant suit 
.-=gp=-.
Don’t mixdown to a 16 bit file and then normalize it – that way, you’re unnecessarily throwing away signal quality. It increases the quantization error along with raising the volume. Doing it properly, the quantization noise stays at the minimum of about -96dB.
Normalization itself isn’t evil, but it should be done the right way, at the right time, with the right number of bits in the signal.
You can avoid normalization altogether by mixing so that your peaks are below but near 0dB (say, above -3dB or so). Or, you can mixdown to 32-bit float and normalize that track in n-Track (import the file and normalize it), solo the normalized track, and then mixdown to 16 bits. Of course, you can normalize it and convert to 16-bit in any wave editor that supports the 32-bit float format. Using 24-bit format instead of 32-bit float is almost as good.
But first, reread Phoo’s post, because I believe he hit the nail on the head:
1) What is it that your MP3s sound quiet in relation to? If it’s commercial MP3s or highly compressed & mastered indie MP3s, there may be nothing wrong with your tracks other than maybe needing some mastering.
2) If you take the mp3s and turn them back into waves, import the original wave and the reconverted wave and compare the two visually in n-Track, do they look pretty darn similar? If so, see item #1 above. If not, let us know – something’s wrong and it should be fixable.
To turn an MP3 back into a wave file (or countless other conversions), download and install dBPowerAmp Music Converter (dMC). This app also makes much better quality MP3s than n-Track does (at least, the last time I compared the two, over a year ago). Once installed, you can right-click on any file (even in a program’s “open file” popup) and convert between any two supported formats. You can install codecs to support other popular encodings like WMA and APE (a lossless compression format).
HTH
Jeff
I think that it also depends on what program you use to play the CD or MP3. I find on my computer, that N-track plays louder than Windows media player, even when using the same wav file. And you might check whether there is any EQing or effects (SRS WOW, Qsound,etc) on the player itself.