increasing volume in FCP4
 

hi all,

Where are the other filters I can use to increase volume of a PARTICULAR CLIP beside going to mono and pump up the gain? I am a layman when it comes to sound, please explain to me like you are explaining to a newbie.

I also realize pumpng up the gain also increases the hum of the clip. I see there is a hum remover in one of the audio filters but i dunno how to use it!

Would appreciate step by step instructions...i am a layman.

Thanks!!!

Adjusting the volume is very easy and can be done directly on the timeline. Note the little icon on the bottom left of the timeline window that looks like a zig-zag line. Click once on that (if needed) and you will then see a pink line running through the audio track(s) in your clips. Point the mouse to that line, the cursor will change to an up/down arrow. Drag the line up to increase volume, down to decrease. A little window will show how many dB it's changing.

If you want to vary levels within a clip, hold down the option key and click anywhere on that line. A dot will appear. This has the same effect as keyframing in the viewer window. Each dot represents a point where you can begin or end a change in level.

Play around with it a little and you'll quickly get the hang of things. Take a few minutes to read the section on audio in your FCP manual (RTFM ;-). It's a pretty good introduction to the basic concepts and will get you started in the right direction.

hi,

I have tried that and pushed the volume to +12db, but its still too soft. any other ways i can increase the volume furthur but minimize noise and hum?

are those audio filters easy to use? can i increase the volume of a particular clip then reduce its hum later?

Thanks!

Of course you can boost the gain more than 12 dB if you like. I haven't tried to reduce noise and hum myself, but suspect FCP's capabilities will be limited in this area. If you have a big problem I doubt that anything will really help you. The parametric equalizer allows you to boost or cut a specific range of frequencies. You might read the manual section on that and try some experiments. Generally speaking the best way to understand any of FCP's filters is to try them. You could also ask a more generalized question about reducing noise and hum in our audio forum.

If you have increased the gain as far as the sliders will allow then there is no way to increase it further within the application. About the best you could do would be to play the audio out to an external recorder and re-record with the recorder gain set high then re-capture the audio back to FCP. The result isn't likely to be very good because the basic problem you are clearly facing is that the original recording level was way to low. In re-recording and re-capturing you will amplify background, electronics and quantizing noise as well as the hum you mention.

Yes, there are fairly capable audio filters in FCP and yes, I think they are easy to use but then I'm a practising electrical engineer. They shouldn't be too daunting for normal people but you'll just have to experiment to learn how to use starting with what's in the manuals. It's probably not going to be possible to give you step by step instruction here. If you know anyone with familiarity with this part of FCP and could induce that person to give you a hands-on tutorial that would probably work best.

Double up the clip and export it as an aiff

Export the audio to PEAK (which should have come with FCP) and do your gain adjustments there. It will let you pump it up much higher and you can run some filters to remove the hum or hiss while your there. Then export it back to FCP.
If the problem is NOT on the tape then you should look at your capture settings and make certain the levels FCP is capturing the audio track are acceptable.