How to Normalize & Fade Out a recording using Audacity

[Hugh-AR]

This topic is not about using Audacity for making a recording. It is a brief look at a couple of things you can do with your WAV or MP3 file once you have made your recording.

So what is Audacity?

Audacity is an easy-to-use, multi-track audio editor and recorder for Windows, macOS, GNU/Linux and other operating systems. Audacity is free, open source software.

You can mix and combine audio tracks, and manipulate your music in all sorts of ways. But all I want to look at here is a few very basic things you can do (and should do).

First, you need to download Audacity to your computer. You will find the Audacity download for your setup, here:

Do a right-click to open this up in a New Tab.
https://www.audacityteam.org/download/

When you get there you will see these options below .. so click on one of them.



If you had Audacity already, or if you have just downloaded it .. run it now.
What we are going to do in this topic is to load in an MP3 (Audacity will also load WAV files), and as a DEMO I have a specific MP3 I want to have a look at. This is a piece played by John Trevor (barwonfan) .. Goodbye from The white Horse Inn. You can listen to the piece by clicking on the 'Play-arrow' below.



I have downloaded the MP3 for this by clicking on the 'Down-Arrow', top right. Have named it White Horse Inn and put it into a Folder on my computer so I can find it easily when loading it into Audacity.

Next .. to load White Horse Inn into Audacity.

Click on the tab File at the top, and in the drop-down box choose Open.



You will be shown the Folders on your computer, with Look in: at the top. Find the Folder where you put the MP3 and highlight it (single click with the mouse). The name will appear in the box at the bottom, and you click Open for it to load into Audacity.



The waveform for White Horse Inn loads in, but part of it is off the screen. It is always a good idea to have the whole song showing on the screen so we can see it all at a glance. The terminology for this is "View .. Fit to Width".
So click on the tab View at the top and choose Track Size, Fit to Width.



We now get to see the whole track across the width of the screen.



I had said earlier that you should look at your waveform in Audacity. There are two main reasons for this. Now I know that you listened to what you were recording as you were recording it .. but are you quite sure that the recording has ended up in STEREO? Just looking at the two Channels in Audacity (Left Channel is at the top; Right Channel is underneath) and comparing them you can easily figure out whether the two waveforms are exactly the same .. of if there are differences. If there are differences, your recording is FINE .. it is in STEREO.

Next .. what were your recording levels like? Is any of your recording 'in the RED' ie. clipped? If it is, you cannot rectify that. To read more about RECORDING LEVELS click this LINK below:

Do a right-click to open this up in a New Tab.
http://www.tierce-de-picardie.co.uk/viewtopic.php?f=200&t=8200&p=49330#p49330

Looking at the waveform of White Horse Inn (above) .. it's OK (?) .. but a little on the quiet side. It should fill more of the space available. So we need to NORMALIZE it.

What does NORMALIZATION do?

Basically, it 'ups' all the volumes across the board in proportion .. keeping the 'peak' (highest) level just below the clipping point. In proportion being the operative word(s). This is like increasing each volume level by a percentage, rather than upping each volume by a fixed amount.

This is how we do this in Audacity. First, you have to 'select' the portion you want to work with (in this case the whole track). The portion you have selected changes to a white background.

Click the Select tab at the top, and choose All (or, they have a 'shortcut' for this .. hold down the Ctrl and press the letter A).



This is what the waveform now looks like.



Click the Effect tab at the top, and choose Normalize.



You then have to choose what 'level' you want. Zero is the maximum you can have. If there is a great variation in the waveforms throughout the piece I would probably choose that, but if there is just an 'average' amount of change I would choose -2dB. Which is what I have done here. Click Apply.



This is what the NORMALIZED track looks like. Compare what the waveform now looks like, as compared with the original. I have set the track 'playing', and you can see that the recording level indicator is up in the 'yellow' area. That's much better, all round.



Below is a DEMO of how this track now sounds .. after being Normalized to -2dB.



To be continued ...

[barwonfan]

Wow. What you did to The White Horse Inn recording is great. I have had Audacity on my Laptop for about 10 years ,and have never felt confident about using it. It is a free program and I think that in future I will use it; especially when I am happy with something I have played on my Kbd BUT had FORGOTTEN to hit the Fade out button. And, maybe, I can also use Audacity to normalize the volume when I am using 2 or three different styles, in the same song.
J.T.

[Ron]

Another well executed article to help others get their perfect audio recording.

Ron

[Hugh-AR]

Continuing this topic ...

Listening to the end of this recording you will have been aware that at the end, the STOP button has been pressed too early .. which has resulted in a 'cut off' leaving the listener 'up in the air'. This can be rectified by getting Audacity to Fade Out at the end.

First, look how the piece has ended. The waveform of it is below.



In my DEMO below I have repeated the 'ending' you are listening to.
The waveform of it looks like this:



Click the arrow below to listen to this Ending.



This is how to do a Fade Out at the end.

Whatever section of an Audacity recording you want to work with, you first have to Select it. Any section you SELECT will show with a WHITE background. For Normalize, this was easy, as we were selecting the WHOLE TRACK.

This time we want to Select a section about ½ to 1cm in width at the end of the recording.
To do this, Click and HOLD with the mouse anywhere in the 'waveform' area and drag sideways until you have the area of white you want. In this case, as the end of the song was 'cut off', it's easiest to click with the mouse ½ to 1cm from the end .. and drag it to the end. This is what you will see.

If you are not happy with the section you have highlighted, just click with the mouse in a slightly different place and 'drag' again. Your new selection will replace the old.

When you're happy with the area you have selected, click the tab Effect at the top and choose Fade Out.



This is what your waveform will now look like .. fading out towards the end.

And what does this sound like?
Click the white arrow below to listen.



Of course, the length of time it takes to 'fade out' is determined by how much of the waveform you Select in the first place. If you chose an area 2cm to 3cm in width then the fade out would be a lot slower.

Here is what the whole piece sounds like with Normalize applied, and a Fade Out at the end.



And this is what the waveform of this final piece looks like.



Having made these changes to the waveform in Audacity I needed to SAVE these changes to an MP3 (which is what you have listened to above). The operative word here is Export (not SAVE). So click on the tab File at the top and choose Export, Export as MP3.



Incidentally, this is how you can convert a WAV file recorded on your keyboard into an MP3.
Put the WAV file from your keyboard onto a Memory Stick, and load it into Audacity (Open).
The waveform of your music will show.
Then Export as MP3 as in the example above.

Hugh

[barwonfan]

Hugh, that's wonderful. I've no idea of how long it took you to make these instructions with their step by step pictures. The work you have put in to making this post will be very valuable to some present members, and future members of this Forum. Many thanks, J.T.

[Ron]

Another excellent article to enable fuller use of Audacity.

Ron

[Hugh-AR]

Thanks you two for taking an interest and posting a Reply.
There is one more thing worth mentioning when using Audacity to make adjustments to a recording you have done.

When you press the 'record' button on your keyboard, how long do you wait before you press your first chord/note? I asked Den about this, and he said 2 seconds. More pressure! Take your time. Check your setup, press any buttons you need to and start your recording when you are ready! Your recoding may end up like this, with a long gap before it starts.



Have a listen to what is happening here. (By the way, John Trevor didn't actually do this with his White Horse Inn recording. I have added some 'silence' to the beginning of it to illustrate my point.)



We wouldn't want to wait that length of time before any music started to play.
You know what's coming next! To do anything with an Audacity track you first have to Select the section you want to work with.
So Click and hold with the mouse at a point in the body of the waveform just before the music starts, and drag the mouse across the 'silent' bit until you are at the start.



We now need to DELETE that white highlighted area. There are two ways of doing this.
1. Click on the tab Edit at the top, and choose Delete.



2. Or press the Delete key on your computer. Please note that on older versions of Audacity you could only 'delete' via the Edit tab.

The waveform now looks like this.



Gone is the silence at the beginning. Click the below to hear what it now sounds like.



If you had removed silence to a track you had just recorded, you would now have to SAVE your altered track by the File, Export, Export as MP3 route.

I said at the start of this topic that you should take a look at the waveform of your recording in Audacity.

1. You can check whether or not your recording really is in STEREO .. or Two Track MONO.
2. You can check the recording levels. If they are not 'up' enough you can Normalize the whole track. It's always better to 'under-record' something and then Normalize it, rather than 'go into the RED'. Once a recording has been 'clipped' you cannot afterwards restore what has been lost.



3. You can Fade Out (or Fade In) your recording.
4. You can REMOVE any "silence" at the beginning or end of a recording. This will take some of the pressure off you when making a recording.
5. If your recording was WAV, you can SAVE it (Export it) as MP3.

Hugh

[Ron]

Great pity Hugh that your tutorials were not around when I had just started doing my very early recordings. Would have made life much easier. However, I learned by trial and error. Just need now to try and make my recordings much more universally pleasing

Ron