Hi Ryan,

Here is a quick tip on boosting the volume of your own recordings in Sound Forge.

The biggest problem home recording artists face is making their own CDs sound as loud as commercial CDs without introducing distortion. You must have noticed that your home recorded CDs tend to sound a decibel or two softer than regular commercial CDs.

This issue can be resolved in 3 quick easy steps in Sound Forge.

Open your WAV recording file in Sound Forge.

1. Fix the CD Offset

| File | Process | DC Offset…|
Check = Automatically detect and remove
Check = Compute DC offset from first 5 seconds only
[OK]


2. Run the Normalize process to Peak Level

| File | Process | Normalize |

Peak Level

Move Slider to the very Top = 0dB
[OK]

3. Run the Normalize process to Average RMS Power

| File | Process | Normalize |

Average RMS power

Set the Normalize Slider to –13dB
You may want to move this down to –14dB or –15dB if it gets too loud.

Scan Settings = -50dB
Attack Time = 200ms
Release Time = 200ms

If Clipping Occurs = Ignore (Saturate)--> This is the most important setting to get the high levels!

If you set this to anything else, you will not get the desired loudness.
Short Peaks do not matter.

[OK]

The resulting WAV file sounds just like a commercial recording. It has all the presence and clarity you would expect.


Tapas