Can I increase the gain of a recording I made?

[barwonfan]

I have recorded a song which I would like to enter in this month's Challenge but it is too soft. Maybe when I played it on my SX 900 I had the Master Volume which is situated just below the On/Off button on my SX 900 turned down a bit low. I am concerned that if I post it in the Challenge that members who listen to it with just the speakers on their laptops will have trouble hearing it. I did. Even when I plugged my headphones into my laptop it sounded rather faint.
I put it into Audacity hoping to get the sound louder but Audacity does not seem to have that in their list of things you can do. I don't really want to record my song all over again, as I would be bound to make a mistake or two---I get all flustered when I am recording on my beloved PSR 970 or my SX 900
Any suggestion?J.T.

[barwonfan]

Further to my post-----I should have added that I was using a Style when I recorded the song on Quick Audio Record. I will record the song to-day as a Midi. Maybe, then I will be able to increase the gain. I like using the word "gain" because I think that it refers to how loud the sound is, and yet " loud" is not a good word because I think that it is a word reserved for increased intensity. Ah, these technical words I am throwing around, and I am NOT the least bit qualified to use them. BUT, questions on the Forum need to be clearly stated otherwise the result is confusion!
I went into the mixer on my SX 900 but, what a conglomerate of options are in the mixer. The mind boggles when you click on, and open the mixer and I am faced with so many categories . --all the way from Panel to Style to M Pad to Song to to Master to Mic to Aux In to Blue Tooth.
And then there is even options on the panel on the side.
So much to learn! SO LITTLE TIME. J.T.

[Hugh-AR]

JT,

When you loaded your song into Audacity you were looking for the wrong words for what you wanted to do. In fact, it was for you that I had put up a topic about this, using as an example your recording of White Horse Inn. There were several things I did with that, and one of them was upping the VOLUME because it was too quiet. This is called NORMALIZE. You must have read what I had said as you made a comment:

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.

So read this topic again. Load in your recording that is too quiet and NORMALIZE it to about -2. You then need to SAVE it, and the word for doing this is EXPORT (as MP3).

Do a right-click to open this up in a New Tab.
http://www.tierce-de-picardie.co.uk/viewtopic.php?f=200&t=11882

No, you shouldn't record using the MIDI recorder unless you are 100% confident that you know how you can play about with what you have recorded after you have done it. Changing the volumes of individual instruments in the recording, YES. But changing the overall volume, NO. And anyway, once you have recorded your song with the MIDI recorder, no one else can listen to it except you on your keyboard. You then would have to record across from the MIDI RECORDER to the AUDIO RECORDER. Why make things so complicated for yourself?

Hugh

[Hugh-AR]

JT,

I have really upset Den by saying to you NOT to record in MIDI. Den says that when you have bought an expensive Arranger Keyboard then you should make full use of it and do some 'arranging' .. like changing volumes, or voices .. or whatever. You can change absolutely anything you had set up in your Registration eg. REVERB of an instrument; or Octave of an instrument etc. So please go ahead and make a recording in MIDI .. then you can change any VOLUMES after you have recorded it. Just bear in mind that nobody else can listen to your MIDI recording apart from you on your SX900 as it needs a SOUNDCARD to make the sounds you are hearing. If played through a computer it will rely on the soundcard in your computer, which will basically be a standard piano for everything you hear. Your MIDI recording won't even sound right on my Tyros 4 as my Tyros 4 doesn't have all the sounds you have on your SX900 .. but it would sound much, much better than on a computer!

To get your MIDI recording into a format that everybody can listen to with the 'correct' sounds you have to turn it into an AUDIO recording. This has to be done on your SX900. When you have made any adjustments you want to with your MIDI recording, 'play it back' on your SX900 and record it straight across to your AUDIO RECORDER, which will give you an MP3 (or WAV) for everyone to listen to. Once in this format you can't make changes to any of the content of your recording. You can then only use Audacity for eg. Normalizing it, or cutting out silent bits, making individual bits of it louder or softer (which would apply to the whole waveform, not just to eg. the STYLE or a Trumpet .. but you can do that when it's in MIDI format), COPYING parts of the waveform and popping them in somewhere, making the music 'play backwards' (for if you want to make some wierdy sounding music), even adding another track to the mix. You can even make the track 'play' faster (or slower) using Audacity. When you have done any of these thing in Audacity you have to SAVE them as MP3 (or WAV). The relevant word for SAVE is EXPORT (Export as MP3).

Hugh

[Brian007]

Hi ALL,

The best way may be to save the original audio recording and import it into Audacity and use the AMPLIFY tool to increase the gain?

Brian007

[Hugh-AR]

Brian,

Yes, you can Amplify your track. This means basically that you increase the 'gain' by a fixed amount across the board. Which of course makes everything louder. Using this feature you can opt to exceed/not exceed the clipping point. The whole point of NORMALIZE is that you increase the volumes in proportion, whereas this option you increase them all equally.

To use this, once again you have to highlight the section you want the feature to apply to (Select, All), click on the tab Effect, and then Amplify...



You can then choose the amount of amplification you want to apply, and whether or not you want to allow clipping (ie. distortion).



Hugh

[Hugh-AR]

As I was saying that a MIDI will only play with sounds it can access on a soundcard (and therefore will only be heard as originally intended in the device it was recorded on), let's try a little experiment.

Below is a song played by Den .. Snow Waltz.

Den makes his recordings as MIDI files, and he has done Snow Waltz as a MIDI file. We want you to hear what this sounds like on your computer .. so click this Box Link and Download the MID file to your computer. You won't be able to 'Play' it .. just download it.

Do a right-click to open this up in a New Tab.
https://app.box.com/s/kqid9fjc2zsqorh31bq044ao9m9x4dqc

Make sure you know where it has been put (probably in the Folder Downloads) .. go find it and double-click on it. Choose Windows Media Player to play it, and have a listen.

Alternatively, if you have Audacity on your computer you can load the MID file in to that and have a listen. Audacity 'loads' MIDIFILES into the top area of the program, not where the Left and Right channels are for waveforms. Click the Play arrow to play it.



This is the what you hear playing it from your computer's soundcard.

Now click this Box link below. As this is Den's piece as an MP3 you will be able to 'Play' it. It will sound the same to all of us, and it will sound exactly as Den played it on his keyboard as he created the MP3 from the MID file on his keyboard.

Do a right-click to open this up in a New Tab.
https://app.box.com/s/30y1c4dc5lv675x6nbv33rfvhouy9stf

That sounds better than the computer version!

Hugh