Loudness/volume

[bbrown]

How can I increase the volume on my Youtube recordings?
I use a Zoom H4N and then trim my video with Audacity, sometimes adding reverb.
My peaks cannot go any higher without distortion. I've tried using a compressor but do not like what it does to the sound.

I record with a fair amount of headroom, but wonder if I need more.

For some reason, I get a lot of variation on the volume on final YT uploads.

For example, I did a recording a few days ago and it's too quiet ..... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VxU26vPsIGU

I know this really basic stuff.

Thanks.

[paulp1960]

Multiband look-ahead compression/limiting does the trick but not in Audacity.

Something like this:

http://www.waves.com/plugins/l3-ultr...ultimaximizers

[muscmp]

it may partially be the way youtube uploads it with their compression schemes.

play music!

[KevWind]

Originally Posted by bbrown

How can I increase the volume on my Youtube recordings?
I use a Zoom H4N and then trim my video with Audacity, sometimes adding reverb.
My peaks cannot go any higher without distortion. I've tried using a compressor but do not like what it does to the sound.

I record with a fair amount of headroom, but wonder if I need more.

For some reason, I get a lot of variation on the volume on final YT uploads.

For example, I did a recording a few days ago and it's too quiet ..... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VxU26vPsIGU

I know this really basic stuff.ne that are showing ?

Thanks.

Humm honestly doesn't seem "too quiet" to me, particularly compared to the the two other renditions of that tune showing to right. What are you monitoring on ?

[FwL]

That track seemed to have decent volume on my phone fwiw.

One of the issues I have with Audacity is volume. I had my wife using that program for voice recording and she had to keep cranking up the gain on her mic (adding more noise) and was still getting barely anything into Audacity.

I finally talked her into using Reaper instead.

[bbrown]

Thanks Paul, I did not know what a 'Maximizer' was, but maybe it's something I can play around with. I can add VST's to Audacity and there might even be on already there.

Kevwind, I agree it's not too bad, but some of my uploads come out significantly quieter for some reason. It seems like I have to go to great effort to attain this volume.

Fwl, I should probably go to Reaper. It took me forever to learn Audacity, so I've been a bit loathe to try a new DAW.

Thanks for the replies.

--Bill

[rick-slo]

Volume is ok, though you could post recording increase the volume (normalize for max volume).

However the real issue is a thin, somewhat hollow sound. That comes mainly from X/Y microphone recording (worst mike position for recording guitar IMO)
you are getting with the Zoom H4N. There also could be additional negative factors such as poor room acoustics.

You might get some improvement by positioning the H4N closer to the guitar (though watch out for a boomy sound). Best bet would be getting a couple of matching
microphones, plugging them into the H4N and experimenting with spaced pair mic'ing.

[MikeBmusic]

Note, too, that you should use WAV audio files when adding them to your video, not MP3, which is already compressed, than suffers another round of compression by youtube.