Basic Mixing Techniques - Audacity, Adobe Audition

Rahul (getting back to routine) posted

Hi Friends,

There are lots of new singers joining this site and looking for tips in mixing with Audacity or other basic softwares like CE pro or Adobe Audition. I am just going to share some experiences which I compiled when I started singing. Then, I was using Audacity and hope sharing the basic techniques will help the amateur singers to present their songs in a better way and get a general idea of mixing at the very basic level.

The general material is very basic and taken from some email excerpts I shared with Vishal Khaparde and others who taught/helped me to mix when I started.

Basically I record raw voice file, then do noise removal on it …remove unwanted noise, breaths etc ….Then apply compression, if needed lil bit of EQ …then Echo and Reverb …and the mix it with the K track ….You might have to slightly align the voice file wid the K track in case there is a latency issues with the recording.

This is what Vishal wrote to me long time back…It has lot of pointers which can help you guys immensely
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I think the basic problem with amatuer recording is the technique ….The main mistake a lot of people do is to record your voice on the Karaoke track … The best technique is to record voice separately from K track …Only then you can add effects on your raw voice as much as you want …got it ?? For example, in AA if the recording option is – Mic Input only it will record only your voice ….if its Stereo – It will record your voice along with the K track ….in that case you cant do much as it will affect the quality of the K track too if u add effects on the track with the voice. ….
You might wanna use headphones while singing to avoid song getting recorded along with your voice …… Other imp thing for recording is ….a noise free room and pop up filter which prevents sounds like “ph” “bh” …

So lets say you recorded your song ….now remove the K track and keep your voice file only ……export it and save the raw file. Import a copy of it into any of your editing software. You can use adobe audition but you can try Audacity …its a free tool and very easy to use.

Here is what you do in order for post processing :
1. Remove Noise from Recordings:

The following are some general steps that could be followed to remove noise from a recording:

1. Take a sample of noise. This can be done by simply pressing the record button and recording the silence in the room. In other words, just record the sound of the room, if you will, and nothing else. And consider that as a sample of noise. Do not save it permanently since this sample would be changing from time to time. Do this every time before u start a recording session.

2. Select the section of your recording from which you want to remove noise. Usually, it is the whole song unless there are pieces in your recording from other sources.

3. Select the “remove noise” option in your sound editor.

2. Use Silence for Recordings:
The most appropriate areas to add silence are between “antaras” of your song, in the beginning, and at the end. In other words, most of those areas where your singing voice is absent. Adding silence cleans up your recording quite a bit.

It is important that silence be added to the non-singing portions of your recordings because even if the noise has been completely removed, sometimes there is still some residual noise/signals that can make your recording sound distorted at places.

Most of the sound-editors come with “Add Silence” feature. Find out if your sound-editor has this feature and then learn how to use it. Usually it is done by selecting the area where you want to add silence and then selecting the option.

3. Use Compression for Recordings: ( Audio level compression is a process in which the dynamic range (difference between loud and quiet) of an audio waveform is reduced. This is used in guitar effects racks, recording studios, etc. )

It is very important to be careful while using this technique. There are some songs where the voice levels are modulated intentionally, for example, singing a soft line and then singing it strongly with full volume, or whispering, etc. For such songs, if you apply compression, it will increase the volume of those pieces also. It is better not to use compression on recordings that use too many of voice levels introduced to express emotions, etc.

For other songs that have an even flow of voice level, it should be used to make the whole recording sound evenly.

4. Use Echo & Reverb for Recordings:

Well, you really need to experiment with it. Based on your recording, you can apply it to the complete song or only to selected portions. Make sure not to use too much echo as it may add distortion to your recording. Also, the two effects can be used in combination, i.e., some portions get echo and some reverb.

Audacity has some plugins Gverb for reverb but if you feel its easy to use reverb from Adobe Audition then export the track from Audacity and import it in AA and apply reverb, save the track again ….Its always good to save a copy of the noise free track so that you can then experiment to add various effects on the song. In case you dont like the effects you can start again with your noise free track.

For Echo in Audacity I use Delay=0.2, Decay=0.2 which gives a nice feel to your “raw” voice.

5. Normalization : Audio normalization is the process of increasing (or decreasing) the amplitude (volume) of a digital audio recording. Typically normalization increases the amplitude of the audio waveform to the maximum level without introducing any distortion into the recording.

Usually this technique should be used mostly when the audio levels are going off the roof. When that happens, a very uncomfortable loud noise with distortion is heard when those pieces are played. In order to keep the volume level with in limits, apply normalization which will clip those off-limit levels. It is usually best to apply normalization on the whole song.

So in short the order of things :
1. Remove noise,
2. Add Compression,
3. Add Reverb and Echo,
4. Do Normalization …
5. Mix the voice track with K track and export it in a single mp3 file ….done :-)

If you import 2 tracks – K track and Voice Track in Audacity and Export it as mp3, audacity mixes those tracks into a stereo file ….You might wanna play it once to make sure they are aligned properly or you may have to use the shift tool to match the K track and Voice Track …. You can even adjust volume of ur voice and keep volume of k track low ……It may sound tough but its easy once you play with the settings….after all mixing is what feels good to you …there are no set rules !

For the Chorus effects : Since I record my voice separate from K track ……I recorded 3-4 voice tracks with different pitch and mixed them together to get that effect ! :-) …

These are very basic things that you can try to get started in audacity or Adobe Audition. Even if you have a different software, the process to follow is the same to get a decent quality mix. A lot depends upon the quality of recording too, so invest in a good mic and gear and get good recordings which when processed with effects, will give u great mixes:)

I will take any questions you guys have and if I know the answer, will surely let you know or guide you to a place where you can find an answer:)

Posted on May 15, 2011