boost volume of a few notes in a track

merhere


Greetings. How do you select a section of a track and adjust the volume of that selection without affecting the entire track? Should be a sound curve that can be applied to a selection in here somewhere. Thanks!

 
Hi there Mike
 
The feature you're after is definitely there - it's called a Gain Envelope.
 
For what you want to achieve, the best method would probably be to create a Clip Envelope (as opposed to a Track Envelope).
 
Here's an example I've mocked up to show you how to do this (the screenshots are from Cakewalk SONAR, but the method is very similar for Guitar Tracks).
 
 
In this audio track, you can see the central portion is much 'louder' than the rest:
 

 
 
 
 
The first thing you need to do is isolate the part of the track you want to work on - in other words, you need to create an audio 'clip' (an audio clip is the name for a discrete segment of an audio track).
 
Left click to place the Now Time Marker at the point in the track where you want the beginning of the audio clip to be; now right click and select Split from the options. Now reposition the Now Time Marker where you want the clip to end and repeat the process to split the track at this point. Once you've done this, you should be able to select the clip in isolation to the rest of the track:
 

 
 
 
 
Now you need to create the Clip Gain Envelope in the selected clip. To do this, right click anywhere in the clip and select Envelopes > Create Clip Envelope > Gain
 

 
 
 
You should now see the Gain Envelope, which appears as a straight red line that extends across the width of the clip:
 

 
 
 
 
To change the gain level of the whole clip, simply left click anywhere on the Envelope and drag it up (to increase gain) or down (to decrease gain). As you drag the Envelope up and down you will see a read out (in decibels) next to the direction arrow to give you a visual representation of the changes you are making. Here I've dragged the envelope down to reduce the gain by 7.5dB:
 

 
 
 
 
If you require more control, especially if you need to alter the audio levels at several places within the clip, you can also do this by applying what are called 'Nodes' to the Envelope. Each node you add to the Envelope can be dragged independently to change the shape of the envelope. To add a node, right click on the Envelope where you want to change the level and select Add Node from the options:
 

 
 
 
You should see the node appear on the Envelope. You will see that you can drag it around to change the shape of the Envelope. For more control, you can continue to add as many nodes as you like to the Envelope. Incidentally, the Envelopes and Nodes can be moved around in real time while you're playing the track so you can hear the effect your changes are making to the audio.
 

 
 
 
The biggest bonus of using this method is that you don't permanently change the audio levels of your original recording (also called non-destructive editing). The changes are applied when you mix-down your song, but the Envelope and any nodes you've added remain fully editable.
 
As you can see from my third screenshot above, you can also create Clip 'Pan' Envelopes, and if you like, you can add an Envelope to a whole track.
 

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There is another method of creating an Envelope on a track which may be of use to you Mike. You can actually set up Guitar Tracks (although this might depend on which version you are running) so you can "ride the faders" as the track plays in real time. This is called Write Automation.
 
To set this up in Track View, you need to click on the 'W' button in the Track Pane:
 

 
 
 
You can also switch Automation on in the Console View (incidentally, it's much easier to move the faders in the Console View):
 

 
 
 
The button will light up, and a red line appears around the controls (i.e. knobs and faders) of any parameter you can write.
 
Here's how it looks in the Track View:
 

 
 
 
And in the Console View:
 

 
 
 
To create an envelope in real time, simply press Play on the transport control and drag the Volume fader up and down (or the Pan fader side to side). The envelope will appear on the audio waveform in the Track View. As per the first method, any envelopes you create using this method are non-destructive and fully editable.
 
 
Hope that helps Mike, fire back with any questions if you need anything else explaining.
 
 
Steve
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Steve, thank you for the detailed response. This is exactly what I needed. Thanks again for the lesson!