Subject:Need to Brighten Recording Sound

Posted by: jmcutting

Date:1/21/2004 1:31:59 PM

Hey gang, I am new to all of this and have recorded both guitar and vocals separtely. I edited them in Sound Forge first then put them together in Acid. It sounds okay but is a bit dark, I would like to brighten the sound but not sure how. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

Justin

Subject:RE: Need to Brighten Recording Sound

Reply by: Big_Faced_Boy

Date:1/21/2004 3:16:35 PM

You could try ACID's track eq to even the sound out/brighten up certain frequency ranges (click the track fx icon for the sample - next to mute and solo icons).

Alternatively, you could apply a better eq plugin (in acid) and apply compression to the sample in either ACID or Sound Forge. (Waves C4, LinMB, C1 Compressor (very expensive) and Blue Compressor (Free - look for Blue Line plugins) are all really good, Sony/Sonic Foundry Multi-band dynamics is good, but involves a greater understanding of compression). Just be gentle!

Normalizing the sample in Sound Forge (using peak reference) will take the highest peak of the sample and set it to the specified level. Remember, -6dB is 50% potential volume when using peak values (as opposed to RMS, which is better used for mastering). Best to do this first with quiet samples.

BFB.

Subject:RE: Need to Brighten Recording Sound

Reply by: jmcutting

Date:1/22/2004 6:44:46 AM

Thanks BFB I'll give it a try.

Justin

Subject:RE: Need to Brighten Recording Sound

Reply by: rraud

Date:1/22/2004 12:08:59 PM

You may want to try or demo the BBE Sonic Maximizer, or other high frequency exiter.
There is, or was, a decent free DX HF exciter plug-in available. I'll look for it when I have time and leave another post.

Subject:RE: Need to Brighten Recording Sound

Reply by: RiRo

Date:1/22/2004 3:12:12 PM

BBE is good. The Freebie HF exciter is RGC audio and a link is here.

http://directxfiles.com/manufacturers/rgc_HFstim.htm

I like this one very much and use it often to restore HF that can get lost in noise reduction or when it was just muffled to start with.

RiRo

Subject:RE: Need to Brighten Recording Sound

Reply by: Rednroll

Date:1/23/2004 9:00:45 AM

This is what happens when you have too many tools at your finger tips. You ask a simple question and everyone tries to over engineer it, with exciters and the like. If you want brightness, a simple EQ will do the trick. When you refer to "brightness" this refers too the higher frequencies. Try some track EQs in Acid, and put in a parametric EQ, adjust the Q to "1", and the frequency to somewhere around 5Khz. Then start to boast this frequency and see if that helps. In addition you might want to add a highpass shelf starting around 10Khz to give you some airy brightness. If that doesn't give you what you're looking for, than you might want to play around with all the mentioned Gee Whiz tools.

Subject:RE: Need to Brighten Recording Sound

Reply by: Big_Faced_Boy

Date:1/24/2004 7:40:51 AM

I wholeheartedly agree with Rednroll, though I do think compression should be considered a standard practice, rather than a gee-whizz tool. After all, whenever you listen to any professional recording nowadays, you're listening to eq behind compression. Compression helps to level out recordings, squashing the undesirable peaks down thus allowing the overall volume of the source to be increased. The key is BE GENTLE. If you can hear the compression working (at least in non-electro music), you're (probably) overdoing it. BBC compression guidelines state this as working practice.

A good tip with eq is to make the sound worse first to help pin down problem areas. If you think something needs turning down, try boosting it first and pin down exactly where it starts to sound really nasty. Then turn it way down, then back up to an acceptable level. If using ACID track eq or a paragraphic, use a narrow bandwidth (Q) where possible and avoid use of hi-pass eq, particularly on already toppy sounds. Band notch is best in the majority of cases.