Is there a downside to changing the waveforms to level audio?

[Resistance19]

I am working with a band right now and I kind of blew it on the vocal recording. It's now editing time and the waveforms are almost non existant in the quieter sections. I was wondering if there would be a problem if I just altered the gain of the parts in Logic's Sample Editor. This could also serve the purpose of making the load a little easier come compression time I guess... It seems to make sense in my head but I don't want to find out later that I destroyed the audio. Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thank!

 

[Kohugaly]

Sometimes I also edit vocals this way sometimes (especially in the past when I used shitty microphone)... simply rise the gain on quiet phrases...It's actually just a gain riding before compressor.... usually sound more natural than shitload of compressors ... but be aware of the noise levels - you are rising not only the vocals, but also the noise (well... it goes the same with compressors too)... that might be a problem...

simple trick :-D make copy of the files, keep the originals untouched and edit the copies instead... if you'll find out it ruines it more than it fixes it, simply dump the copies and use the original (unedited) tracks instead

 

[Nimvi]

What Kohugaly said. It's not uncommon to do this to a degree to prep your signal for nice and even compression over the track, but if you have to raise the volume by a lot, chances are there is a noticable noisefloor on those parts. It may not be too bad though, and depending on the musicstyle, it may not even be noticable, if it's only for a phrase.

What DAW are you using btw? On most you can change the pre-fx volume of individual parts non-destructively. Would be a lot easier to do.

 

[RedDog]

Same as riding the fader. Even compression, and waves doesn't get to eat your wallet.

 

[Kohugaly]

What DAW are you using btw? On most you can change the pre-fx volume of individual parts non-destructively. Would be a lot easier to do.

It's a matter of opinion... for me selecting a part of waveform and clicking "normalize" works much faster and easier... but yes... automating pre-fx volume (or as RedDog called it Riding the Faders) might be easier to adjust directly in DAW during mixing. But really... that's just the mater of what suits you... the result is the same.

 

[Resistance19]

I'm using logic 9. I would have to change the gain pretty dramatically to get it even... aside from my error the singer was incredibly inconsistant and so his dynamic range is kind of stupid.

I am curious about riding the pre-fx volume as I havent stumbled upon a way to do this in Logic yet. Any suggestions?

Thanks for all the replies!

 

[Kohugaly]

Use some kind of gain plugin first in the chain and automate that... most of DAWs have that sort of staff in stock plugins also... I never worked in Logic before, so can't tell you exactly how to do it

 

[hurdy]

if you recorded in 16 bit then you may have issues with the noise floor
but if you recorded in 24 bit I don't think the noise will too much of an issue
It depends on how quiet your talking about i guess

 

[Resistance19]

Thanks for all the ideas! I'm sure one of them is bound to work.

My plan for now is just to automate the track and send it to an aux and mix from there... Probably should have thought of that from the beginning.