Audio level low

[Danny Hays]

Usually the audio masters are compressed to just below clipping. I would try compressing the wave file to lower the spikes and then normalize to just below clipping. Let us know, Danny Hays

[Matt Crowley]

When you render audio to AC3 (as with the AVCHD format) you have an option in the advanced audio settings (Click the “Custom” button in the “Render As” dialog, then click the “Audio” tab) to use automatic gain control.

This is enabled by default and makes the decoder/player automatically adjust the audio level to suit typical DVD/BD levels. If you un-check this option, the audio level will not be affected, so you will have the same level when you play/import your rendered video as in your Vegas project.

[Dirk Wellekens]

Thanks! I will give this a try. But does this mean that typical DVD/BD levels are lower than the levels of the TV programmes?

By the way: I also happened to find another topic on AC3 volume reduction posted in 2004, which says”:

When rendering to AC3 format, the volume will be automatically reduced. If you wish to prevent this from happening, make the following setting changes:

Change the dialog normalization to -31

On the PreProcessing tab, change both the Line mode profile and RF mode profile to NONE

Is this something that has to be done as well or is this something that had to be done in older vegas versions?

Dirk

[Mike Kujbida]

“Is this something that has to be done as well or is this something that had to be done in older vegas versions?”

Yes, this is a tweak I still do and have it saved as a preset.

[Stephen Mann]

The problem is in Dolby, not Vegas. Google for ‘dialnorm’ and you will find a whole lot of discussion on this topic.

Dialnorm, by the way, is a Dolby term for “Dialog Normalization”.

Steve Mann
MannMade Digital Video
http://www.mmdv.com

[Dirk Wellekens]

I’m not sure where I can find where to change these settings.

Dirk

[Mike Kujbida]

[Dirk Wellekens] “I’m not sure where I can find where to change these settings.”

Note that the following images are from Pro 9 and may be in different tabs depending on your version.

Encode set to Dolby Digital AC3 Pro;
Click on custom tab;

Dialog normalization: -31 dB;

On the last tab marked preprocessing;
Set the Line Mode & RF mode profiles to “None”;

Now save this as a preset.

[Lawrence Farr]

Just as another general matter, peak meters have little to do with loudness. There are many ways to raise the average level of your soundtrack mixes, make them louder, but they “can” be damaging to the overall sound if done incorrectly.

Anyway, peak meters don’t tell you much more than how much room you have before digital clipping. Vegas, oddly enough having started as an audio app, doesn’t seem to have RMS meters but you can use a third party plug-in on the master for that.

Here’s a free one… https://www.sonalksis.com/freeg.htm

[Dirk Wellekens]

As far as I understand, these templates are audio templates used when rendering video and audio seperately, right?

I tried to render in the past using the bluray template (with seperate audio and video rendering), but that didn’t work for me because of a “low on memory” message. So, this is what I do:

1/I render to AVCHD to have a version of my compilation that can be used in Vegas for further editing/changes afterwards if needed. That works. The AVCHD template renders both audio and video and here I don’t see the settings you listed: only the “automatic gain control” option seems to be available. When I uncheck (as suggested by Matt) volume is kept. So far, so good

2/ I burn a bluray iso file directly from the timeline. Here I use wave64 for audio: no problem.
However, I can also choose AC3 here, butI see no option to play with the automatic gain option, so I guess this could again give a low volume problem, right? Is there an advantage of using AC3 over wave64?

Dirk