Wave file wave form is tiny

Ian-Schwartz wrote on 8/23/2022, 5:18 PM

I've imported a .WAV file to use with my video. The file, which was captured from a mixing console in a club, sounds excellent. The only problem is is that I have to Maximize the volume to hear it, and even when I do, the Wave form it displays is tiny. As you can see in the screen shot, the wave is barely visible. Does anybody have any suggestions?

Comments

Former user wrote on 8/23/2022, 5:56 PM

@Ian-Schwartz Hi, I don't know much about audio but this tool will help show the details of your media & someone will help 👍

The tool called MediaInfo, download it, it's quick & free https://mediaarea.net/en/MediaInfo
After downloading, right click on the media in your Windows folder, open MediaInfo, choose Text from the View option, select all, copy & paste in a comment here,

like this 👍

CubeAce wrote on 8/23/2022, 7:10 PM

@Ian-Schwartz @Former user

Unfortunately in this instance MediaInfo will not tell you anything of interest as the recording level was set too low to begin with and MediaInfo does not give most file capture setting details such as audio volume, Recorded ISO values or camera settings in general. The sound file probably has less than a 20db dynamic range looking at the waveform.

Instead right click the audio wave file and select 'Edit waveform externally.'

This will open the audio editor supplied with Music Studio.

From there select the 'normalize object volume' function and then select save project on exiting.

Because the original file has been recorded at so low a volume and possibly does not have the bit depth it should have, the resulting audio may not sound very good but it should be loud.

Ray.

Last changed by CubeAce on 8/23/2022, 7:15 PM, changed a total of 3 times.

 

Windows 10 Enterprise. Version 22H2 OS build 19045.5737

Direct X 12.1 latest hardware updates for Western Digital hard drives.

Asus ROG STRIX Z390-F Gaming motherboard Rev 1.xx with Supreme FX inboard audio using the S1220A code. Driver No 6.0.8960.1 Bios version 1401

Intel i9900K Coffee Lake 3.6 to 5.1GHz CPU with Intel UHD 630 Graphics .Driver version Graphics Driver 31.0.101.2135 for 7th-10th Gen Intel® with 64GB of 3200MHz Corsair DDR4 ram.

1000 watt EVGA modular power supply.

1 x 250GB Evo 970 NVMe: drive for C: drive backup 1 x 1TB Sabrent NVMe drive for Operating System / Programs only. 1X WD BLACK 1TB internal SATA 7,200rpm hard drives.1 for internal projects, 1 for Library clips/sounds/music/stills./backup of working projects. 1x500GB SSD current project only drive, 2x WD RED 2TB drives for latest footage storage. Total 31TB of 10 external WD drives for backup.

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Running MMS 2024 Suite v 23.0.1.182 (UDP3) and VPX 14 - v20.0.3.180 (UDP3)

M Audio Axiom AIR Mini MIDI keyboard Ver 5.10.0.3507

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Audio System 5 x matched bi-wired 150 watt Tannoy Reveal speakers plus one Tannoy 15" 250 watt sub with 5.1 class A amplifier. Tuned to room with Tannoy audio application.

Ram Acoustic Studio speakers amplified by NAD amplifier.

Rogers LS7 speakers run from Cambridge Audio P50 amplifier

Schrodinger's Backup. "The condition of any backup is unknown until a restore is attempted."

Former user wrote on 8/23/2022, 7:50 PM

@CubeAce 👍 I thought that, but i don't know much reg audio so thought it was at least a place to start 👍🤷‍♂️😁

CubeAce wrote on 8/23/2022, 8:13 PM

@Former user @Ian-Schwartz

Hi Gid.

Just to check I went through my own old recordings I made of bands I worked with in the 70s and deliberately re-recorded a track I recorded in a friends cellar of his band at -60db and then put it through the process I described above to see how much information was missing once the track was re-normalised.

The result considering the original came from analog tape was surprising good.

The original recording is the green section at the beginning and the the re-normalised low volume recording is the yellow second section.

Seeing as I have no way of contacting any members of the band anymore I will thank Dave Ralph, vocals and acoustic guitar, Mike Paul, keyboards, William Terry, lead electric guitar, Donald Bearham, electric bass, and Richard Jackson on drums. All live, and mixed on a 12 into 2 track Allen and Heath analog desk into my Revox 1/2 track tape recorder.

Ray.

Last changed by CubeAce on 8/23/2022, 8:14 PM, changed a total of 1 times.

 

Windows 10 Enterprise. Version 22H2 OS build 19045.5737

Direct X 12.1 latest hardware updates for Western Digital hard drives.

Asus ROG STRIX Z390-F Gaming motherboard Rev 1.xx with Supreme FX inboard audio using the S1220A code. Driver No 6.0.8960.1 Bios version 1401

Intel i9900K Coffee Lake 3.6 to 5.1GHz CPU with Intel UHD 630 Graphics .Driver version Graphics Driver 31.0.101.2135 for 7th-10th Gen Intel® with 64GB of 3200MHz Corsair DDR4 ram.

1000 watt EVGA modular power supply.

1 x 250GB Evo 970 NVMe: drive for C: drive backup 1 x 1TB Sabrent NVMe drive for Operating System / Programs only. 1X WD BLACK 1TB internal SATA 7,200rpm hard drives.1 for internal projects, 1 for Library clips/sounds/music/stills./backup of working projects. 1x500GB SSD current project only drive, 2x WD RED 2TB drives for latest footage storage. Total 31TB of 10 external WD drives for backup.

ASUS NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 12GB. nVidia Studio driver version 572.60 - 3584xCUDA cores Direct X 12.1. Memory interface 192bit Memory bandwidth 360.05GB/s 12GB of dedicated GDDR6 video memory, shared system memory 16307MB PCi Express x8 Gen3. Two Samsung 27" LED SA350 monitors with 5000000:1 contrast ratios at 60Hz.

Running MMS 2024 Suite v 23.0.1.182 (UDP3) and VPX 14 - v20.0.3.180 (UDP3)

M Audio Axiom AIR Mini MIDI keyboard Ver 5.10.0.3507

VXP 14, MMS 2024 Suite, Vegas Studio 16, Vegas Pro 18, Vegas Pro 21,Cubase 4. CS6, NX Studio, Mixcraft 9 Recording Studio. Mixcraft Pro 10 Studio. CS6 and DXO Photolab 8, OBS Studio.

Audio System 5 x matched bi-wired 150 watt Tannoy Reveal speakers plus one Tannoy 15" 250 watt sub with 5.1 class A amplifier. Tuned to room with Tannoy audio application.

Ram Acoustic Studio speakers amplified by NAD amplifier.

Rogers LS7 speakers run from Cambridge Audio P50 amplifier

Schrodinger's Backup. "The condition of any backup is unknown until a restore is attempted."

browj2 wrote on 8/23/2022, 8:17 PM

@CubeAce

Hi Ray,

Why not just right-click and select Normalize?

@Ian-Schwartz

Hi,

In your image, I don't see the volume line that should be in the middle of the object with the volume handle.

What happens when you Normalize?

And no, the waveform doesn't change, at least it doesn't for me. You would have to export the wave to ME3 as Ray indicated. The wave file itself has to be changed. There is a temporary file that contains the waveform and it has to be deleted; it is created again upon reopening the project.

JOhn CB

John C.B.

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CubeAce wrote on 8/23/2022, 8:33 PM

@browj2

Hi John.

You only have 20 db of gain available using that method and the volume gain is still way too low. The file itself is not even re-scanned, calculated and re-sampled and then re-written. Using the normalization right click on the object is just as if you had only adjusted the mixer volume slider on its own. As I said in my other topic that adjustment is the equivalent of an input gain pot before the mixer controls. Opening the Audio Editor allows all that to happen.

You can try the experiment I did above for yourself just export an existing file but have volume the slider set so your output is lower than -60db. Re import the file and play with it.

Ray.

 

Windows 10 Enterprise. Version 22H2 OS build 19045.5737

Direct X 12.1 latest hardware updates for Western Digital hard drives.

Asus ROG STRIX Z390-F Gaming motherboard Rev 1.xx with Supreme FX inboard audio using the S1220A code. Driver No 6.0.8960.1 Bios version 1401

Intel i9900K Coffee Lake 3.6 to 5.1GHz CPU with Intel UHD 630 Graphics .Driver version Graphics Driver 31.0.101.2135 for 7th-10th Gen Intel® with 64GB of 3200MHz Corsair DDR4 ram.

1000 watt EVGA modular power supply.

1 x 250GB Evo 970 NVMe: drive for C: drive backup 1 x 1TB Sabrent NVMe drive for Operating System / Programs only. 1X WD BLACK 1TB internal SATA 7,200rpm hard drives.1 for internal projects, 1 for Library clips/sounds/music/stills./backup of working projects. 1x500GB SSD current project only drive, 2x WD RED 2TB drives for latest footage storage. Total 31TB of 10 external WD drives for backup.

ASUS NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 12GB. nVidia Studio driver version 572.60 - 3584xCUDA cores Direct X 12.1. Memory interface 192bit Memory bandwidth 360.05GB/s 12GB of dedicated GDDR6 video memory, shared system memory 16307MB PCi Express x8 Gen3. Two Samsung 27" LED SA350 monitors with 5000000:1 contrast ratios at 60Hz.

Running MMS 2024 Suite v 23.0.1.182 (UDP3) and VPX 14 - v20.0.3.180 (UDP3)

M Audio Axiom AIR Mini MIDI keyboard Ver 5.10.0.3507

VXP 14, MMS 2024 Suite, Vegas Studio 16, Vegas Pro 18, Vegas Pro 21,Cubase 4. CS6, NX Studio, Mixcraft 9 Recording Studio. Mixcraft Pro 10 Studio. CS6 and DXO Photolab 8, OBS Studio.

Audio System 5 x matched bi-wired 150 watt Tannoy Reveal speakers plus one Tannoy 15" 250 watt sub with 5.1 class A amplifier. Tuned to room with Tannoy audio application.

Ram Acoustic Studio speakers amplified by NAD amplifier.

Rogers LS7 speakers run from Cambridge Audio P50 amplifier

Schrodinger's Backup. "The condition of any backup is unknown until a restore is attempted."

Ian-Schwartz wrote on 8/23/2022, 9:46 PM

Thanks for all of your helpful comments. @CubeAce the reason you don't see the volume line is because it's maxed out, i.e. at the top. I tried the internal Movie Studio normalize function--it didn't make the wave form any more visible, but it did make the track sound like crap. It sounds like there's not much I can do about this track.

Ian

Former user wrote on 8/23/2022, 9:50 PM

@browj2 Hi, mine's like that when pushed right to the top & the cursor isn't on it

Cursor on shows a double line at the top,

@CubeAce Thanks, I have Sound Forge 15, I very rarely open it & every time I do it takes me 1/2 hr to learn how to use it 🤷‍♂️🤦‍♂️😂😂

CubeAce wrote on 8/24/2022, 1:38 AM

@Ian-Schwartz

The original file doesn't look maxed out to me. It looks like you are using the default MS setting of only showing a half wave form. It is tiny, and sitting at the base rather than showing from the middle outwards, (full wave form should be selected in the program settings to see that) possibly showing a volume level of less than -80db. If it was maxed out the file would be mainly showing dark green with no yellow when highlighted.

If the recording was made originally from something that was limited to a 16 bit bit depth then it is possible the recording may only be a few bits deep which if then normalised is going to sound worse than someone playing Super Mario on a Game Boy at full volume as the original file will only have recorded the peaks of the audio.

@Former user

Hi Gid.

My manual for Cubase is over 640 pages long. The first quarter of it is about setting it up. If I'm reloading the program from scratch it takes me a day to connect it all together internally. Most modern programs now have a minimalist look to the interface to preserve more power to allow for more tracks to be added. I seldom need more than 16 tracks and prefer the flexibility and customisation of the interface including how the meters behave, sensitivity of the scroll wheel etc. I can have the timeline showing samples, seconds, beats per minute and I could print notation of anything I compose after as sheet music. Wave-forms can be shown as lines, solid waves similar to MEP or spectrographic to also show the frequencies within the wave-form.

But, if I don't set it up correctly I don't get a peep out of it. 😂😂.

Ray.

 

 

Last changed by CubeAce on 8/24/2022, 1:43 AM, changed a total of 3 times.

 

Windows 10 Enterprise. Version 22H2 OS build 19045.5737

Direct X 12.1 latest hardware updates for Western Digital hard drives.

Asus ROG STRIX Z390-F Gaming motherboard Rev 1.xx with Supreme FX inboard audio using the S1220A code. Driver No 6.0.8960.1 Bios version 1401

Intel i9900K Coffee Lake 3.6 to 5.1GHz CPU with Intel UHD 630 Graphics .Driver version Graphics Driver 31.0.101.2135 for 7th-10th Gen Intel® with 64GB of 3200MHz Corsair DDR4 ram.

1000 watt EVGA modular power supply.

1 x 250GB Evo 970 NVMe: drive for C: drive backup 1 x 1TB Sabrent NVMe drive for Operating System / Programs only. 1X WD BLACK 1TB internal SATA 7,200rpm hard drives.1 for internal projects, 1 for Library clips/sounds/music/stills./backup of working projects. 1x500GB SSD current project only drive, 2x WD RED 2TB drives for latest footage storage. Total 31TB of 10 external WD drives for backup.

ASUS NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 12GB. nVidia Studio driver version 572.60 - 3584xCUDA cores Direct X 12.1. Memory interface 192bit Memory bandwidth 360.05GB/s 12GB of dedicated GDDR6 video memory, shared system memory 16307MB PCi Express x8 Gen3. Two Samsung 27" LED SA350 monitors with 5000000:1 contrast ratios at 60Hz.

Running MMS 2024 Suite v 23.0.1.182 (UDP3) and VPX 14 - v20.0.3.180 (UDP3)

M Audio Axiom AIR Mini MIDI keyboard Ver 5.10.0.3507

VXP 14, MMS 2024 Suite, Vegas Studio 16, Vegas Pro 18, Vegas Pro 21,Cubase 4. CS6, NX Studio, Mixcraft 9 Recording Studio. Mixcraft Pro 10 Studio. CS6 and DXO Photolab 8, OBS Studio.

Audio System 5 x matched bi-wired 150 watt Tannoy Reveal speakers plus one Tannoy 15" 250 watt sub with 5.1 class A amplifier. Tuned to room with Tannoy audio application.

Ram Acoustic Studio speakers amplified by NAD amplifier.

Rogers LS7 speakers run from Cambridge Audio P50 amplifier

Schrodinger's Backup. "The condition of any backup is unknown until a restore is attempted."

Ian-Schwartz wrote on 8/24/2022, 8:52 AM

@CubeAce I took your advice and unchecked the Half waveform display and it did move the waveform to the centre, but didn't make it any more visible. As you can see in this screen shot I do have the Volume maxed out, i.e. set to +20db.

CubeAce wrote on 8/24/2022, 9:07 AM

@Ian-Schwartz

Hi Ian.

You have to click on the audio object to turn it yellow, then the green of the waveform is visible.I think I can still see the waveform in the centre which seems to be showing as a very small waveform in the centre line.

.If on the other hand you have clicked on the object first then I am at a loss as to why I'm seeing those blocks I have highlighted on the centre line. That literally looks like a waveform of only two bits depth to me at present.

That would only produce noise if amplified. Are the meters on the mixer maxing out into the red when played?

Did you try to use the external editor?

 

Ray.

Last changed by CubeAce on 8/24/2022, 9:09 AM, changed a total of 1 times.

 

Windows 10 Enterprise. Version 22H2 OS build 19045.5737

Direct X 12.1 latest hardware updates for Western Digital hard drives.

Asus ROG STRIX Z390-F Gaming motherboard Rev 1.xx with Supreme FX inboard audio using the S1220A code. Driver No 6.0.8960.1 Bios version 1401

Intel i9900K Coffee Lake 3.6 to 5.1GHz CPU with Intel UHD 630 Graphics .Driver version Graphics Driver 31.0.101.2135 for 7th-10th Gen Intel® with 64GB of 3200MHz Corsair DDR4 ram.

1000 watt EVGA modular power supply.

1 x 250GB Evo 970 NVMe: drive for C: drive backup 1 x 1TB Sabrent NVMe drive for Operating System / Programs only. 1X WD BLACK 1TB internal SATA 7,200rpm hard drives.1 for internal projects, 1 for Library clips/sounds/music/stills./backup of working projects. 1x500GB SSD current project only drive, 2x WD RED 2TB drives for latest footage storage. Total 31TB of 10 external WD drives for backup.

ASUS NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 12GB. nVidia Studio driver version 572.60 - 3584xCUDA cores Direct X 12.1. Memory interface 192bit Memory bandwidth 360.05GB/s 12GB of dedicated GDDR6 video memory, shared system memory 16307MB PCi Express x8 Gen3. Two Samsung 27" LED SA350 monitors with 5000000:1 contrast ratios at 60Hz.

Running MMS 2024 Suite v 23.0.1.182 (UDP3) and VPX 14 - v20.0.3.180 (UDP3)

M Audio Axiom AIR Mini MIDI keyboard Ver 5.10.0.3507

VXP 14, MMS 2024 Suite, Vegas Studio 16, Vegas Pro 18, Vegas Pro 21,Cubase 4. CS6, NX Studio, Mixcraft 9 Recording Studio. Mixcraft Pro 10 Studio. CS6 and DXO Photolab 8, OBS Studio.

Audio System 5 x matched bi-wired 150 watt Tannoy Reveal speakers plus one Tannoy 15" 250 watt sub with 5.1 class A amplifier. Tuned to room with Tannoy audio application.

Ram Acoustic Studio speakers amplified by NAD amplifier.

Rogers LS7 speakers run from Cambridge Audio P50 amplifier

Schrodinger's Backup. "The condition of any backup is unknown until a restore is attempted."

Ian-Schwartz wrote on 8/24/2022, 9:15 AM

The meters are maxed out "into the red" when played and the sound is really good.

My problem is the tiny waveforms, as I need to sync my audio with the video and the tiny waveforms make that really difficult.

AAProds wrote on 8/24/2022, 9:32 AM

@Ian-Schwartz

Ian, just recode it as Ray describes in his post above:

https://www.magix.info/us/forum/wave-file-wave-form-is-tiny--1304817/#ca1804439

That should give you a much bigger and more visible waveform.

 

All my forum comments are based on or refer to my System 1.

My struggle is over! I built my (now) system 2 in 2011 when DV was king and MPEG 2 was just coming onto the scene and I needed a more powerful system to cope. Since then we've advanced to MP4 and to bigger and bigger resolutions. I was really suffering, not so much in editing (with proxies) but in encoding, which just took ages. A video, with Neat Video noise reduction applied, would encode at 12% of film speed. My new system 1 does the same job at 160% of film speed. Marvellous. I'm keeping my old system as a capture station for analogue video tapes and DV.

System 1

Windows 11 v23H2 severely modified by Openshell and ExplorerPatcher

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CPU: Intel i7 13700K running at 3400mhz, cooled by a Kraken 2x140mm All In One liquid cooler.

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Various other SSD and HDDs.

Monitor: 27"/68cm Samsung, 2560 x 1440, 43 pixels/cm.

MEP 2021 version 20.0.1.80

Movie Studio 2025

Magix Video Easy version 7.0.1.145

System 2

(Still in use for TV and videotape capture)

Windows 10 Home Version 2009

CPU: i5-750 at 2670mhz with 12gb RAM

Onboard IEEE1394 (Firewire) port

GPU: ATI Radeon HD 4770 (512mb) which is ignored by MEP

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CubeAce wrote on 8/24/2022, 10:12 AM

@Ian-Schwartz

This could just be the waveform display is corrupted.

Look in the Project folder and look for any H0 or HDP files and delete them. Then re-open the project and see if the waveforms are larger. If there is no waveform you should be able to right click the audio object and get the 'Create wave form' option to appear and try again.Don't worry about deleting the above mentioned files. The program will recreate them when the project is used again.

If the file is maxing out the meters then resampling the audio file may make no difference. It's the graphical interface that may be going wrong. What are your program settings for playback under File / Program settings / Program / Device Options?

Ray.

 

 

 

Windows 10 Enterprise. Version 22H2 OS build 19045.5737

Direct X 12.1 latest hardware updates for Western Digital hard drives.

Asus ROG STRIX Z390-F Gaming motherboard Rev 1.xx with Supreme FX inboard audio using the S1220A code. Driver No 6.0.8960.1 Bios version 1401

Intel i9900K Coffee Lake 3.6 to 5.1GHz CPU with Intel UHD 630 Graphics .Driver version Graphics Driver 31.0.101.2135 for 7th-10th Gen Intel® with 64GB of 3200MHz Corsair DDR4 ram.

1000 watt EVGA modular power supply.

1 x 250GB Evo 970 NVMe: drive for C: drive backup 1 x 1TB Sabrent NVMe drive for Operating System / Programs only. 1X WD BLACK 1TB internal SATA 7,200rpm hard drives.1 for internal projects, 1 for Library clips/sounds/music/stills./backup of working projects. 1x500GB SSD current project only drive, 2x WD RED 2TB drives for latest footage storage. Total 31TB of 10 external WD drives for backup.

ASUS NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 12GB. nVidia Studio driver version 572.60 - 3584xCUDA cores Direct X 12.1. Memory interface 192bit Memory bandwidth 360.05GB/s 12GB of dedicated GDDR6 video memory, shared system memory 16307MB PCi Express x8 Gen3. Two Samsung 27" LED SA350 monitors with 5000000:1 contrast ratios at 60Hz.

Running MMS 2024 Suite v 23.0.1.182 (UDP3) and VPX 14 - v20.0.3.180 (UDP3)

M Audio Axiom AIR Mini MIDI keyboard Ver 5.10.0.3507

VXP 14, MMS 2024 Suite, Vegas Studio 16, Vegas Pro 18, Vegas Pro 21,Cubase 4. CS6, NX Studio, Mixcraft 9 Recording Studio. Mixcraft Pro 10 Studio. CS6 and DXO Photolab 8, OBS Studio.

Audio System 5 x matched bi-wired 150 watt Tannoy Reveal speakers plus one Tannoy 15" 250 watt sub with 5.1 class A amplifier. Tuned to room with Tannoy audio application.

Ram Acoustic Studio speakers amplified by NAD amplifier.

Rogers LS7 speakers run from Cambridge Audio P50 amplifier

Schrodinger's Backup. "The condition of any backup is unknown until a restore is attempted."