How to get Vocals to be at the same level?

Hi all,

 

Okay, just recorded my vocals to this song I'm doing. It has a 1st and 2nd verse. The problem is that I did both verses in seperate takes. It seems the 2nd verse is a little louder than the firse verse (I guess the way I positioned myself to the mic might have been closer). What I am interested in knowing, is there a way to make both 1st and 2nd verse the exact same level? Instead of me going through the verses and adjusting the audio manually each time it gets louder, I'm wondering if there is something I can do to automatically to make it all the same level.

 

Much obliged folks, I appreciate your advice

 

OQ

You can try normalizing youre signals . . . . failing that . . . compression?

Hey Vpunk,

 

Thanks for your response. Okay, it was suggested to not do any compression since I'm sending the piece out to be mastered once finished.

 

Maybe I'm not doing it right, but when I normalize it just seems to bump up the volume. So If I did it to both verses it would harbour the same result no?

 

Maybe I'm not normalizing correctly? Thanks for your help!

 

OQ

Right . . . . mastering . . . .hmmm. . . . . time to love Automation!!!!

 

go get a cup of coffee and get ready to train your ears for level!

 

you can compress the vocals, in a mix before it gets mastered. What you shouldn't do is compress the whole mix before it gets mastered, as that's the job of the mastering engineer.

 

Either that, or automate it. Normalising is not advised, as it just pushes the peak up to 0.0db. You could have two really high peaks in both vocal takes, so the contrasts would be minimal. Normalising is kind of a blunt instrument, and no-one who mixes professionally that I've met ever uses it

Open the vocals in an Audio window and you should be able to change the gain to match the other vocal part.

Hey Guys,

 

Okay thanks for the info. I tried compressing it and that seems to help. I may just try and re-do the vocals and hope to get it in the one continuous take...

 

Again thanks for the responses, it's much appreciated!

 

OQ

Open the vocals in an Audio window and you should be able to change the gain to match the other vocal part.

 

shivermetimbers, do you mean open in a sample ed window?? That's what I would do and then use the Gain function to bring up the overall level a few db.

 

Orions, the Gain function has a a thing where you can check first how much headroom your file has and then choose how much you want to bring it up and how much headroom that will leave you. It's good to have a few db left to play around with. This is does pretty much what normalization does, but with more control, ie, you don't have to max the file so the highest peak is at zero.

 

If you do have a couple of peaks that are preventing you from lifting the whole file very far, you can always trim them down with the same Gain function - just select those areas and gain them down.

Camillo,

 

Okay, I think I may give that a go...This is my firts recording so I'm just feeling my way through the whole process.

 

Thanks though for the added info!

 

OQ

I would personally re-record everything if possible, and do it all in one session. That way you won't get tonal difference from the two takes with two physical setups.

I would personally re-record everything if possible, and do it all in one session. That way you won't get tonal difference from the two takes with two physical setups.

Best advice in the thread, but that's because it goes beyond the original question: your problem is much greater than simply a level problem.

 

First: if you want to adjust a level problem, adjust your levels. Automating your level fader is the best way, as this is done non-destructively in 32 bit floating point. "Change Gain" or "Normalize" in the Sample Editor is the worse way as it is done destructively in 16 or 24 bit fixed point (depending on the file). Compression is the automatic way to do it, but know that it will change the sound.

 

But back to your original question, you don't just have a level issue, you have a tone issue. The two takes don't have the same sound. If you changed your mic position, you changed your sound. A couple of inches can make a radical difference. So now you could try Match EQ.

 

At the end, trying all of that, you probably won't be very happy with the result, and wish you'd just re-recorded the whole track. So you might as well do it now.

 

But if I needed to salvage a session in that situation, I would use volume automation and Match EQ.

I would personally re-record everything if possible, and do it all in one session. That way you won't get tonal difference from the two takes with two physical setups.

Best advice in the thread, but that's because it goes beyond the original question: your problem is much greater than simply a level problem.

 

First: if you want to adjust a level problem, adjust your levels. Automating your level fader is the best way, as this is done non-destructively in 32 bit floating point. "Change Gain" or "Normalize" in the Sample Editor is the worse way as it is done destructively in 16 or 24 bit fixed point (depending on the file). Compression is the automatic way to do it, but know that it will change the sound.

 

But back to your original question, you don't just have a level issue, you have a tone issue. The two takes don't have the same sound. If you changed your mic position, you changed your sound. A couple of inches can make a radical difference. So now you could try Match EQ.

 

At the end, trying all of that, you probably won't be very happy with the result, and wish you'd just re-recorded the whole track. So you might as well do it now.

 

But if I needed to salvage a session in that situation, I would use volume automation and Match EQ.

 

+1.

try automation first- or put the two verses on separate tracks - if compression helps youre probably using too much