Project volume won't budge

[Nick Mirro]

I am in a bind. From the last thread, I re-rendered this video after raising the volume as much as I could for each of the clips in the project. I didn't even consider the possibility that the manual adjustments made no difference.

One of the speaker's clip volume is at 500%. This seems to be limiting the upper levels of everything else. His voice was recorded a little low, but nothing that would not respond to much less than a 500% increase.

This is making me nuts! The whole clip is just too low and nothing else seems possible. This video has already been submitted. I have till October 3rd to straighten this out.

I really thought it was solved after the last round, but it is not any louder, maybe even lower. It's as if the renderer is normalizing the volume. I thought it might be youtube, but it is low on PC speakers.

Here is a screenshot of the project. Is there anything that can be done?

https://postimg.org/image/xh58fj25h/

The clip is on youtube here https://youtu.be/Rp3XXKkiNXc

[Ken Berry]

Something puzzles me about that image. Can you explain step by step how you changed the volume to 500? It looks to me that you either separated out the sound tracks from the .mov files in the main timeline and inserted them in the audio timeline, or what I suspect really happened, you simply inserted the mov clips already in the timeline into the audio track as well.

[Davidk]

It's not clear just how you've submitted your finished project, but
IF
it was in DVD form
THEN IF
one of the stage 3 burn options is to "normalize audio" - a tick box. Which fits your remark. Supposedly, to ensure a constant level of audio thru the finished item, and to hell with any planned volume variations (eg you may want parts v loud or v soft). The few times I've tried this feature its been an abject failure, somewhat like you are reporting.
ENDIF
My solution is to make sure that this normalise audio box is not ticked before starting the final DVD burn or ISO creation process.
ENDIF

[Nick Mirro]

Thanks so much for the input.

Hi Ken. There are both MOV and MTS files since I used an SLR for the interviews and a dedicated camcorder for everything else. I split the audio from the all MOVs and most MTSs and then used ripple editing to keep them synched.

The last time I posted this, I had already raised the audio (of just the man in the cowboy hat) to 300%. This was done by right-clicking the MOV audio tracks and "adjusting volume." I did his interview with a 6D, which has no headphone out.

I recorded other interviews after testing the 6D levels and manually adjusting the audio levels correctly in the SLR. The result was his audio was too low when I interviewed him. Upping to 300% the first time balanced him with everything else. The overall audio was still to low.

In this attempt current attempt, I raised him to 500%, the maximum with the same method. It doesn't seem to have made a difference. Final volume is very hard to tell when working on a laptop with headphones.

Noting that there were also fade ins/outs to his audio tracks prior to the "adjust volume" changes. The fades were done with the mouse-drag or the mixer fade feature.

David. The output format is MP4 that is shared on dropbox. It is also uploaded to youtube. Both are needed for this submission, which is a statewide contest of the Texas Master Naturalist program.

[Davidk]

You can raise the sound volume of a clip by more than 500%, but it's not just a 'click' process. Probably best done one clip at a time.
1. open the clip, select it and split audio to be raised in volume.
2. select the split audio file and adjust volume up 500%. Delete everything else and save/render that audio file with the new level as a new file in your preferred format eg mp3.
3. close the timeline without saving, and re-open the old project. select the clip and split the audio out.
4. delete that split audio clip in the voice track.
5. import the new (volume raised) audio file, and drag/sync it to the clip. This will be seen as a file at the base 100% volume. seelct the imported voice file and raise the volume again as far as needed.
Caution: raising the volume up this way also raises the background noise and sound eg traffic noise levels too. You may find that it works as a volume raiser but the result isn't satisfactory because of the background sound level.

I've only done this a few times, with a subject who is naturally soft spoken. Mostly, I've found it necessary to re-voice/re-record the sound with a microphone that's set for a higher output level. Always, that's meant change the microphone. Once or twice, necessary to re-record the voice (in a quieter place, like a conference room, using the exact same text so the sound will match the lip movements in the clip) and use it as a separate imported audio file with the clip because the original was in a really noisy environment, like a train station. With a new file of the same text, you can tweak the sound levels of the video clip (down) and spoken audio (up) to get a satisfactory result. In later versions of VS this is called audio ducking, or you can do it manually with the sound mixer feature of the timeline space. But you need a 'clean' audio track to work with.

[Nick Mirro]

I think I understand. There are only a couple of clips of the one person that are already maxed out at 500% so this approach seems really hopeful. Fortunately, the sound recording gear is decent quality so most audio has plenty of elbow room for clean increase in loudness. The interviewee may have a bit of distortion since those particular recordings were weak, but at least all will be heard. Looking forward to trying this! Thank you so much!!!

[Ken Berry]

David picked up a point I have also been wondering about in relation to the background audio (I assume music) track. From the image you attached we cannot see the various tracks in audio view, so I guess I have to ask whether you lowered the volume that music track when the voices were talking? I watched the YouTube video and couldn't really tell if that is what you had done. I realize that that music was not a loud one to start with, but if you didn't change its volume when there was talking, you could use the audio ducking mentioned by David or else do it manually using the "old fashioned" but still very effect rubber-band method which I still tend to use...

All that being said, I thought the overall voice volume throughout the video was pretty good as it is, with only some minor tweaking necessary in one or two bits...

[asik1]

my 2 cents ...
the mix isn't good, most of the sound is too low and can be about 5-8db higher.
The screen capture has 2 mouses

[Nick Mirro]

I think I agree that the audio is too low. It's okay if a user adjusts their player/OS volume and speaker, but I can't expect that. Laptop, phone and tablet speakers just don't pick it up. By comparison, it is really lower than most typical youtube videos.

The background music and most audio in the piece were adjusted by the rubber-band method (love that!). Audio ducking did not work. When I tried it, I thought there might have been too many pieces it to work right.

[Nick Mirro]

Thank you David! Your suggestion worked perfectly

Had never noticed the second pointer, which is gone now. Bug in the zoomit utility. Thank you all here!