do you compress your mixes and then normalise them after ? Off Topic Chat Discuss do you compress your mixes and then normalise them after ? in the The DJ Lounge forums; I’ve used Audacity on some of my mixes and can say it doesn’t half make a difference to the overall sound...

[Chris Powell]

I’ve used Audacity on some of my mixes and can say it doesn’t half make a difference to the overall sound

[fil devious]

i usually do a mix onto cd then rip it to mp3 on the pc, normally 192kbps might try that audacity, think it's free on the net chris?

[Chris Powell]

Yes it's free to download and use SourceForge.net: Downloading ...

Basically just goto file > open > select file > goto effect > compressor
Use the default compressor settings and leave "Normalize to 0db after compressing" checked then press ok.

You can adjust the compressor settings once you’re used to the software although the default settings are fine.

Personally though I’d record to pc as wave first (if not wave mp3) then compress/normalize and burn to CD.

You won't lose any sound quality then and with the mix being compressed and your levels being good anyway it will sound top.

[tOM]

audacity is a dead handy program to have generally - i use it as my main audio editor (cause soundforge is pc only and i can't afford bias peak at the moment) - it's on the cover cd of the computer music plug in special that's out at the moment as well as available on line (along with hundreds of dead handy freeware plug ins)

[Chris Powell]

Threshold: -1db
Ratio: 2:1
Attack Time: 0.1 secs

The above settings should be better to use actually