Let's talk - the best way to up the levels- volume

[sweatboard]

I have some recordings that are just to low.  I have sony soundforge.  Someone tell me a good easy way to get them LOUDER please.  Thanks,

Brian

[river]

Most tapers would tell you--the volume nob.  Others may indicate an option to add gain in post production or to normalize both have pros and cons.  

[sweatboard]

Ok let's say I want to add gain, what is the best way to do so without going through to much trouble?  Also, what are the con's of adding gain?  Thanks,

Brian

[Carter41]

If you're talking post-production, just normalize to 100% (althought, I usually just go to about 95-99%).

[sweatboard]

ok so "normalizing" will up the gain.  I'm doing a Jeff Tweedy show and the last two songs he did without amplification so they are obviously lower in the mix.  If I normalize the entire file (show) should I still up the gain on the last two tracks?  Thanks,

Brian

[corey]

Hmmm... If you up the gain on the last 2 tracks more than you do the others, there's gonna be an obvious difference. If he did those with no amplifications, I would say the most obvious difference is going to be the amount of hiss.

You can use the Sony WaveHammer in Sound Forge, which is kinda like a compressor. Play around with the gain and some of the other settings and see what you can come up with. I did this with a very shitty audio recording on a video that I had to edit one time and it made a lot of difference. It didn't add much hiss at all.