Adobe AUDITION 1.5 - Manual (Page 90)

CHAPTER 3 82
Importing, Recording, and Playing Audio
Select Static Peaks as a great way to find out how loud a song will get before you record
it. Just start monitoring levels and then play the song. After the song ends, the peak
indicators show the volume of the loudest part.
Adjusting a sound card’s levels
Adobe Audition doesn’t directly control a sound card’s record levels (input gain) and
playback levels (output volume). Instead, you can adjust these levels with the mixer appli-
cation that comes with the sound card or with the mixer built into Windows. You may
need to adjust levels if recordings are too quiet (causing unwanted noise), too loud
(leading to clipped, distorted sound), or not audible when played in Adobe Audition.
To get the best sounding results, you should record audio as loud as possible without
clipping. Try to keep the loudest point somewhere between –2 dB and 0 dB when setting
the recording levels.
To adjust a sound card’s record and playback levels by using Windows:
1 Open the Windows Volume Control program.
You can usually access this program in the Programs > Accessories > Entertainment (or
Multimedia) menu of the Windows Start menu. On many systems, you can also double-
click the speaker icon in the system tray to access the Volume Control program, which
resembles a small mixing board with vertical sliders.
2 To adjust the sound card’s playback (output) level, turn up the sliders on the Windows
mixer to the desired volume. Make sure that Mute underneath both sliders isn’t selected.
3 To adjust the sound card’s record (input) level, choose Options > Properties in Volume
Control. Select Recording and click OK. Be sure that the input source you want to use is
selected, and adjust other sliders on the Windows mixer as needed.
To quickly access the Record section of the Windows mixer, choose Options > Windows
Recording Mixer in Adobe Audition.
ug.book Page 82 Tuesday, March 16, 2004 1:29 PM