Chapter 6: Pre-processing
80
Dynamic Range
The Dynamic Range of an audio track is the difference in volume between the quiet and loud
parts of the signal. For example, classical music often has a wide dynamic range. Quiet
passages may be a single unaccompanied violin, but loud passages may be the entire orchestra
playing at once. Rock music, on the other hand, often has a fairly limited dynamic range. Even
though the music is loud, the bass, guitars and drums are usually played constantly, so there is
not that much difference between the quiet and loud parts.
The Dynamic Range filter enables you to boost the volume of quiet parts of the audio, while
limiting loud parts. This is similar to the Normalize feature, but the audio is adjusted on a
section-by-section basis instead of by a single factor for the whole file.
Narrowing the dynamic range of your material can make your audio effectively sound louder
even if the highest points are still at the same level. This is because quieter passages are
selectively boosted while the loud sections are not significantly altered.
Changing the dynamic range is often useful for Web audio because some low bandwidth
codecs do not handle material that is too loud or too soft. Compressing the dynamic range of
the material enables you to keep the loudest sections within acceptable limits, which also
effectively raises the volume of the quiet areas.
Dynamic Range Presets
Cleaner has three Dynamic Range filter presets:
•
Limit to 90%
— ensures the peak of the audio never exceeds 90% of volume. This is
important for compressed Web audio because many codecs do not work well with material
above this level.
•
Hotter
— increases the apparent volume of the audio without making the peaks any
higher. It increases the volume of the quieter sections, which works well when you want to
make your movies sound louder without distortion. However, because this option does not
limit the peaks to 90%, you may have better results using the Narrow Range option for Web
audio.
•
Narrow Range
— limits the peak volume to 90% and brings the bottom up to 20%. This has
the effect of slightly increasing the apparent volume, while still limiting the audio for
compressed Web distribution.
For the best results, use either the Narrow Range or Limit to 90% setting with Web audio. With
these options, you do not need to normalize the audio to 90% because this filter already limits
the peaks to this value. Start with a value of about 40, then increase or decrease this number as
needed to minimize the obviousness of the transitions.
Summary of Contents for 64006-051108-9001 - Discreet Cleaner - Mac
Page 1: ...from discreet November 2000 ...
Page 8: ...Contents viii ...
Page 16: ...Chapter 1 Introduction 8 ...
Page 24: ...Chapter 2 Capture 16 ...
Page 54: ...Chapter 4 Projects 46 ...
Page 68: ...Chapter 5 Settings 60 ...
Page 148: ...Chapter 7 Formats 140 ...
Page 160: ...Chapter 8 Encoding 152 ...
Page 220: ...Chapter 8 Encoding 212 ...
Page 248: ...Chapter 11 Workflow 240 ...
Page 254: ...Chapter 12 Troubleshooting 246 ...
Page 284: ...Glossary 276 ...