audio enhancement in Vegas?

[sdsumike619]

Is there anything I can do to enhance the sound of a Solo guitar performance in Vegas 6? It already has a litle reverb and chorus on it, but I remembe one time someone took an audio clip I posted and did something with what he said was the compressor and it sounded really good... anyone know what that is?

[Soopafresh]

http://www.pacificsoundcraft.com/software.shtml

Free DirectX audio effects. The compressor and limiter are pretty good, especially for free.

[sdsumike619]

thanks,,, what exactly does a compressor do though? I recorded very clean audio through an audio rack (alesis mixer and presonus bluetube)

[bobkart]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Audio_level_compression

[sdsumike619]

thanks for the link, I read: "Guitar sounds are often compressed in order to obtain a fuller, more sustained sound."

That's what I'm looking for but I don't know how to use the tool to accomplish that... Do you know of any sites that tell you how to actually use it? I messed around with it but all I got was a bunch of clipping ...

[BJ_M]

Izotope Ozone is prob. the best plug in for the money in terms of audio enhancement in Vegas

[sdsumike619]

ha! Vegas is expensive enough
I'm messing with the compressor, read the help file on it in Vegas but I still exactly know what I'm doing. just playing with the slider bars and getting either a lot of distortion or it goes very quiet so I'm not getting the hang of how to use it =(

[BJ_M]

you will not get much improvement using only the vegas compressor .. in what you are trying to do ....

post a sample or send me a sample and ill fix it...

[sdsumike619]

OK, here's the file:

http://www.filelodge.com/files/room22/568910/audio.wav

You're like the "easy" button on that staples commercial, just press it and you fix everything.

But can you explain, for my own good so I don't have to ask for help about this again - how you arrive at the settings you did when you fix it?

[BJ_M]

not a complete file - it is a broken wav file you posted (6kb)

[sdsumike619]

oh no? ok hold on...

[sdsumike619]

http://www.filelodge.com/files/room22/568910/audio.wav
try again?

Man, filelodge is slooow, know of a better site?

[Soopafresh]

BJ_M: Sorry for usurping you, just read through the thread again.

Tough one. You're clipping a bit from 8 sec to 11 and from 21sec to 27 sec. The bass notes get kinda boomy, although that's jazz guitar for you. Sounds like a hollowbody through a 12-15" speaker?

Here it is with light compression - enough to hear it but not enough to sound like FM radio.

http://www.megaupload.com/?d=TA4YX24D

(Warning - you might get a popup for 'women seeking men' during the download - tame)

BTW - The "better" free audio effects utilities exist in the VST world, which Vegas doesn't directly support. However, you can download this DirectX2VST wrapper.

http://www.spinaudio.com/downloads.php?download_type=3&download_id=33

These VST effects are free and pretty sweet (there are tons of them out there)

http://digitalfishphones.com/binaries/dominion_v1.2_PC.zip - Several Presets included

http://www.smartelectronix.com/refer.php?url=~bram/files/H2O_v1.0_Win.zip - Basic Compressor

[BJ_M]

Vegas 7 software natively supports VST audio plug-ins... you dont need a wrapper

[sdsumike619]

Soopafresh,
Regarding the clipping, I don't see that at all in the time frames you mentioned or anywhere else in the file? I'm looking at it on the timeline in Vegas. (Between 8-11 seconds, the highest output level is -3.5) and the highest level in the whole song is at 56 seconds at -0.9dB...It is a hollowbody guitar, but no speakers, going through a small audio rack direct into the camera.

That audio file you uploaded sounds really great! You didn't do that with Vegas did you? I kind of understand from reading, what compression is but I still can't figure out how to work it. Is there a website, or tutorial somewhere that explains how to actually set the parameters?

[Soopafresh]

You're probably right about the clipping bit - My machine is long overdue for a reinstall. It was this that I saw:




I didn't use vegas for the compression, although it is absolutely up to the task. Actually, Winamp with the VST plugin adapter would work equally well for this particular task. It's just a matter of finding the sweet spot that doesn't sound artificial and doesn't send everything into the red. Before I throw any "sauce" on top of the original audio, I'll usually normalize it to -2db to avoid overloading the signal.

Here's an introductory guide. Google "Audio Mastering +Limiter +VST settings" for more.
http://www.remix64.com/faq_tut_digital_mastering.html

And here's the BEST free limiter out there for VST.

http://www.betabugsaudio.com/plugs.php (download the W1 Limiter). A limiter is basically a compressor on steroids. That one is an exact replica of the Waves L1 Limiter - a plugin that costs several hundred dollars.

=Some Settings to dial in with the W1=

Name...................................Thresh..... ...Ceiling........Release

High Res CD Master ..............5.0..............0.2.............1.0 (a favorite)
Track Slammer......................18.0............9.0.. ...........1.0
Hard Limiting.........................10.0............2 .0.............1.0
FM Radio...............................5.0........... ...5.0.............1.0
Baseball Game.......................23.0............21.0... ........2.0

Vegas 7 software natively supports VST audio plug-ins... you dont need a wrapper

- I did not know that. Cool. So much of Soundforge seems to have been intergrated into Vegas. VST is new as of v7 ?

[BJ_M]

no - ver 6 also supported completely VST plug ins

[Soopafresh]

Oh, then in that case sdsumike619, just download the W1 Limiter and enjoy Thanks for that info, BJ_M

[sdsumike619]

wow I don't know how I missed all those replies, I'll check into those VST deals now..

[sdsumike619]

I like this W1 thing, 3 knobs! Now we're talking! Thanks for the settings suggestions too, now I'm stylin =)

[sdsumike619]

any suggestions for solo guitar chords?