Normalise or clip gain?

[Dark Lane]

Hi Folks

I've added some vocal samples from a web library to my edit on a separate track but they are way too high a level at the moment.

I know of two ways to reduce to a manageable level:
- reduce the clip gain on each vocal clip (there's only 5-6 so this isn't a problem)
- go into the original sample (View Source Info) and normalise (Edit Audio File > Basic Editing Operations)to a lower peak level (again not a problem)

As there doesn't seem to be an explanation of the View Source Info commands in the manual, I'm curious which one you use and, most importantly, if there is an effect on the sound quality. In other words, are 'normalise' and clip gain the same thing, as far as Waveform is concerned? Or maybe there's another better way?

By the way, I realise normalising affects the underlying audio clip while clip gain doesn't. It's sound quality that I'm concerned about.

Cheers

Steve

[Stuttaton]

Why complicate things? It's better to simply turn down the track volume to the desired loundness.
And if individual clips are not the desired loudness, you use clip gain, of course.

[Watchful]

Avoid normalizing the audio: it brings up all the dynamics up to a target level. What generally happens is that the entire clip sounds like it's blaring. Its use is specific and frankly I think quite rare today.

Clip gain is the way to go, provided the source file isn't already maxed out. I'll explain that in a second.

To lower clip gain, click on the clip in question. Using the Properties pane or the Actions menu (your choice), look for the clip gain setting. Slide it over until you're satisfied with the output level. It sometimes helps to widen the height of the track so you can better appreciate the dynamics of the clip in question. You can visibly see the gain levels reduce on the clip.

I recommend you lower the gain until your various clips are at the same levels relative to the loudest sound across all of them. Now you're staged. You can either use the volume fader (per Stuttaton's suggestion) to lower those clips to your target output level, apply a compressor, or continue to clip gain them uniformly downward, or any combination to your taste.

(Don't just turn down the track volume--if your clips are loud and blaring, they'll just be quieter and blaring. Always gain stage, first, because garbage in, garbage out.)

Now...if the source clips are maxed out (the waveforms in the clip are flat across the top and bottom), you've lost audio that you can't get back. Reducing the gain will surely help, but any elements that were "clipped" across the top are gone.

The only way to deal with that is prevention: always, when recording audio (vocal or otherwise), make sure you're staying well out of the red. You can always raise the gain up, but if the audio gets clipped, it's never going to improve by lowering it.

Hope this helps!

[Peter Widdicombe]

Yes, watch levels from the time you record initially. Too high, and you have distortion/clipping (and digital clipping isn't "pleasant" like tube clipping). Too low, and you run the risk of noise (hiss, etc.).

[Dark Lane]

Thanks all for the advice, I'll work on the clip gain and follow the workflow Watchful suggests. Really helpful.

[spoontechnique]

I thought normalize only made sure that the highest peak of an audio file is -0 dbfs. I don't think it affects the dynamics at all?

[Watchful]

Peak normalization does that, yes, but loudness normalization will bump everything to center around an average level. That can bash around the dynamics, so your louder areas start clipping. I can't tell anyone not to use it, but I never do. It's safer for me to slice up a clip into smaller pieces, adjust the gain to be a little more equal across them, merge them back, then apply compression.

Others may have varying mileage!

[spoontechnique]

Waveform only has one clip normalize setting, and I thought it was peak normalization. Is that right?