The best way to address low audio playback levels in your video(s) is to prevent them from happening in the first place. Before you record the actual video, make a short test recording in which (1) the camera and participants are positioned at the locations where the actual recording is to be made and (2) all participants are speaking at the levels they intend to use during the actual recording. After you've played back the test recording, make any adjustments in camera/participant positioning and speaking levels that are needed to ensure robust audio playback levels.
With that said, one easy way to correct for less-than-optimal audio levels after a video recording has been made is to take advantage of Shotcut's
Gain / Volume
filter. This filter will enable you to generate a new version of the video with improved playback volume. Assuming the problematic video is already open in Shotcut, please proceed as follows:
- Click the (funnel-shaped)
Filters
button near the right of the Shotcut button bar (as shown in
Figure 27
, below).
- Click the
Add a filter
button at the far left of the Shotcut
Filters
window that now opens. As can be seen in
Figure 28
(below), the button has a plus (
+)
sign on it.
- Select (by clicking) the
Gain / Volume
option from the list of filters provided. (See
Figure 29
, below.)
- Replace the value of
0.0 dB
in the
Gain
field with a positive number (no larger than
24
) which represents the increase in volume that you would like to apply to the video in order to make the soundtrack louder. (See
Figure 30
, below.)
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Shotcut uses the "decibel" (
dB
) to represent the amount of
Gain
applied to the soundtrack of a video. Since this is a logarithmic (rather than a linear) scale, you might not have encountered it before. When deciding what audio
Gain
value to use, please keep the following in mind:
- Leaving the
Gain
set to its (default) value of
0dB
will not change
the perceived volume of the audio track.
-
Applying a
positive
Gain
value (by either entering a positive number into the
Gain
field or dragging the adjacent slider to the right) will
increase
the perceived volume of the audio track. For example:
- A
Gain
of +1 dB will produce a barely audible increase in volume.
- A
Gain
of +3 dB will produce a more noticeable increase in volume.
- A
Gain
of +10 db will produce a doubling of the volume.
- A
Gain
of +20 dB will produce a quadrupling of the volume.
-
Applying a
negative
Gain
value (by either entering a negative number into the
Gain
field or dragging the adjacent slider to the left) will
decrease
the perceived volume of the audio track. For example:
- A
Gain
of -1 dB will produce a barely audible decrease in volume.
- A
Gain
of -3 dB will produce a more noticeable decrease in volume.
- A
Gain
of -10 db will produce a halving of the volume.
- A
Gain
of -20 dB will produce a quartering of the volume.
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- Click the
Export
button on the right of the Shotcut button bar, and
Export
the (new) video with improved audio as you would normally do with any video you have been editing.
- When the
Export
process has finished, open the video you just created to check the audio playback level. If the volume is either still too low (or now too loud and distorted), repeat the above procedure
using the original video you started with in step 1
, and adjust the
Gain
setting in
step 4
accordingly. Repeat the procedure until you find a
Gain
setting that yields an acceptable audio playback level.
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Figure 27:
The image below shows the Shotcut program window with the
Filters
button highlighted in red.
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Figure 28:
The image below shows the Shotcut
Filters
window with the
Add a filter
button highlighted in red.
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Figure 29:
The image below shows the Shotcut
Filters
menu with the
Gain / Volume
option highlighted in red.
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Figure 30:
The image below shows the Shotcut
Filters
window with the (modified)
Gain
value of (
+
)
12.0 dB
highlighted in red.
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