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Should I compress sound?

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Hi all

Need a little help.

I'm rendering my edit out into a DV-AVI file (video) and a stereo wave file (audio) however I'm getting some bad clipping/distortion with the audio in some scenes.

Will a compressor (when applied to the audio track) solve this?

What I also have a problem with, when I watch the finished product, the quieter scenes (such as dialogue scenes) are a little too soft so I have to manually crank up the volume using my remote. The problem is then when the movie gets to a louder scene, the volume is too loud and I have to turn it down!

What's the easiest way to make the quieter parts louder and the louder parts quieter?

Will compression solve this problem too? If so, what type of compressor is the best bet?
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What program are you using to edit?

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Thought as much. I don't know if you've done it already, but you've gotta go through the whole thing and mix the sound. On average, keeping it peaking at or around -6dB will keep you in the clear of that nasty clipping. I've never tried a compressor on stuff like that, I've just always been conscious of the levels.

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Its funny you say that, as I lowered the "Master" volume down to about -6.5 but it still happens.

I'll take it a bit lower and see what happens.

As for the "quieter/louder" scenes of the movie though, that has to be done manually?
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Actually, you know, I just remembered the trick that I use. I knew that I replied to this thread because I had some sort of knowledge on the topic, but I somehow forgot to impart it.

If stuff is coming out clipped, try exporting just the audio to a separate WAV file (Export -> Audio) and use that audio track to author your eventual DVD with. If you name the video file and that audio file the same thing (i.e. Edit.avi and Edit.wav), you can use Media Player Classic to play back the video with the other audio track.

I don't know why exporting the audio as a file separate of the video works, it just has for me. So try that.

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Sweet. Trying it now.

Edit: have just done a bit of research and it appears, what I need is a technique/product called double ended/dbx Compression.

According to this:

"A double ended compression system will make loud sounds quieter and quiet sounds louder."

I don't know if there's any codecs/plugins out there that can do this however.
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If you export the audio as a separate file, I think any standard audio editor should do you just fine.

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Well, after exporting the audio to a separate file, the distortion still exists when encoded to 48000khz but interestingly, not when I encode to 44100.

So, I think I'll just stick to 44100. Less hassle.
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Originally posted by: Dantha Fodder
Well, after exporting the audio to a separate file, the distortion still exists when encoded to 48000khz but interestingly, not when I encode to 44100.

So, I think I'll just stick to 44100. Less hassle.

What exactly do you mean by "compress sound". Changing the volume by dynamic range compression, overall lower audio, normalization? Or dou you mean compressing the file so the file size gets smaller?

Do you know if the source was 44.1 khz or 48.0 khz? If you resampled from 1 to the other the audio can sound distorted.

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Sorry Arnie, I should have explained better.

When I say compression I mean in the sense of dynamic range compression, overall lower audio, normalization not file size.

The source audio is 48khz but as I've explained in the above posts, its clipping when I export to 48khz but not at 44.1. Weird.
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Hey, I've had the same problem with exporting audio to 48khz with several programs, including Acid. Not sure what happens, but I've rendered all my audio at 44.1khz, and the problem has never happened again.
  • Todd

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Interesting. I've never had clipping issues when going between 44 and 48 hz.

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