Well, I said I'd mention a recent audio remastering workflow, so here it is....
The story... A relation's kid was in a school choir, and they were passing round the "official" CD, and saying you had to turn the volume up because it was a bit weak.
Wouldn't even play on the stereo, and not on the DVD-ROM in my PC either.
So, rip it using the CD-RW drive - and only ONE program to choose, EXACT AUDIO COPY.
Ripped perfectly, and then pulled into EAC's editor.
Obvious from the start, peak level was only 30% - the idiots hadn't even hit "normalize" on it.
So I started with a normalize in EAC, just to get a better idea of the peaks and dips - but if the level is better than 50% to start with, I'd save normalizing until the end of processing.
Great, that's 10dB better already, but I can see a very fuzzy "silence line", play a snatch, and there's air conditioning and other rubbish there.
Time to try out EAC's best kept secret... the noise profiler and reducer!
Selecting a sample of "should be silence", and playing it through at MAX VOLUME to be sure I didn't catch anything I wanted there, I then took a noise profile (the selection must be a minimum of 0.4 seconds, so unless there's no silence at all, you should be able to find a big enough sample - bigger is better).
Using my normal workflow for the very slow noise reduction tool, I then selected a test area and reduced noise on it, choosing a middle range setting to reduce by (24-36 dB). The result was ok, both on getting the silence line good and flat, and on a playthrough (no audible harm to wanted sounds - you can also have it save the removed sound to a file, and you WILL hear some spitching that parallels the wanted sound). I then undid the sample reduction (you don't want to reduce it twice) and then selected all and reduced (this will take some time!).
Wow! The silence is SILENT, the sound is good, and now I can see something
The potential track gaps are standing out now... The silence before the song, and the burst of applause before the end.
So I mark up the track points - I'd like to put the applause into the track pregaps (INDEX 0) but EAC will only mark index 1 and higher - no problem, I mark the track (INDEX 01) where I want the pregap to be, and a second index (INDEX 02) where I want INDEX 1 and then hand edit the cuesheet afterwards. Must suggest index 0 to Andre, shame the forum for EAC is down at the moment.
So I now have noise reduction, good levels, and tracks, now for the trimmings.
The highest peak (Process File, Select peak range) is actually in the applause, so I select the applause and reduce it by 6dB, to give some extra headroom.
The cutoff at the end is rather abrupt, so I throw in a brief fade, trying a few until it sounds right.
That's about it for EAC, so save it and exit, as I pull out another tool I've not tried before.
Leon's Simple Audio Mastering Program
I start by turning every function off, and trying a few, then I read the instructions.
The first of the compressors, I set for slow attack, VERY slow decay, low compression, and pull the threshold down until I see 6-7dB of gain applied (it auto-compensates).
The second compressor, fast and high, and pull the threshhold down until it indicates 3-4dB of gain (since I got an easy 10dB from step 1, I'm looking for another 10dB boost on the quieter passages).
Also turned on the clipping reduction between stages, just in case.
A few playthroughs, fast forwarding to some loader passages, and a little tweaking of the speeds... Trying to get compressor 1 to act as an auto-level.
OK, render it, and though not documented, the final step is 100% normalization.
And finally, burn with Nero, though the freeware burnatonce would have been a nice touch.
Tools used:
1. Exact Audio Copy (EAC)
2. Leon's Simple Audio Mastering Program (LSAMP)
The story... A relation's kid was in a school choir, and they were passing round the "official" CD, and saying you had to turn the volume up because it was a bit weak.
Wouldn't even play on the stereo, and not on the DVD-ROM in my PC either.
So, rip it using the CD-RW drive - and only ONE program to choose, EXACT AUDIO COPY.
Ripped perfectly, and then pulled into EAC's editor.
Obvious from the start, peak level was only 30% - the idiots hadn't even hit "normalize" on it.
So I started with a normalize in EAC, just to get a better idea of the peaks and dips - but if the level is better than 50% to start with, I'd save normalizing until the end of processing.
Great, that's 10dB better already, but I can see a very fuzzy "silence line", play a snatch, and there's air conditioning and other rubbish there.
Time to try out EAC's best kept secret... the noise profiler and reducer!
Selecting a sample of "should be silence", and playing it through at MAX VOLUME to be sure I didn't catch anything I wanted there, I then took a noise profile (the selection must be a minimum of 0.4 seconds, so unless there's no silence at all, you should be able to find a big enough sample - bigger is better).
Using my normal workflow for the very slow noise reduction tool, I then selected a test area and reduced noise on it, choosing a middle range setting to reduce by (24-36 dB). The result was ok, both on getting the silence line good and flat, and on a playthrough (no audible harm to wanted sounds - you can also have it save the removed sound to a file, and you WILL hear some spitching that parallels the wanted sound). I then undid the sample reduction (you don't want to reduce it twice) and then selected all and reduced (this will take some time!).
Wow! The silence is SILENT, the sound is good, and now I can see something
The potential track gaps are standing out now... The silence before the song, and the burst of applause before the end.
So I mark up the track points - I'd like to put the applause into the track pregaps (INDEX 0) but EAC will only mark index 1 and higher - no problem, I mark the track (INDEX 01) where I want the pregap to be, and a second index (INDEX 02) where I want INDEX 1 and then hand edit the cuesheet afterwards. Must suggest index 0 to Andre, shame the forum for EAC is down at the moment.
So I now have noise reduction, good levels, and tracks, now for the trimmings.
The highest peak (Process File, Select peak range) is actually in the applause, so I select the applause and reduce it by 6dB, to give some extra headroom.
The cutoff at the end is rather abrupt, so I throw in a brief fade, trying a few until it sounds right.
That's about it for EAC, so save it and exit, as I pull out another tool I've not tried before.
Leon's Simple Audio Mastering Program
I start by turning every function off, and trying a few, then I read the instructions.
The first of the compressors, I set for slow attack, VERY slow decay, low compression, and pull the threshold down until I see 6-7dB of gain applied (it auto-compensates).
The second compressor, fast and high, and pull the threshhold down until it indicates 3-4dB of gain (since I got an easy 10dB from step 1, I'm looking for another 10dB boost on the quieter passages).
Also turned on the clipping reduction between stages, just in case.
A few playthroughs, fast forwarding to some loader passages, and a little tweaking of the speeds... Trying to get compressor 1 to act as an auto-level.
OK, render it, and though not documented, the final step is 100% normalization.
And finally, burn with Nero, though the freeware burnatonce would have been a nice touch.
Tools used:
1. Exact Audio Copy (EAC)
2. Leon's Simple Audio Mastering Program (LSAMP)
