First off, I realize that when 2 pieces of the same audio playing exactly together, they will phase out one another, reducing frequencies.  The problem is, I don't know how to get my audio, which is on one track, to another track duplicated, and have the sound be how it was before, and on both tracks, in stereo, without being muffled.  In the past I was just taking the audio track, copying it and pasting it on a new track and it would sound great.  I did a whole feature length project this way, taking the better of the 2 tracks and removing the bad one and copying the good track, and the tracks would play together without any loss of sound.  Now, when I do this, every time I do it, it is phasing out the tracks, and it sounds muffled.  Am I missing something here?  Is there a better way?  I am at a loss to figure it out.  I messed with the pan etc.  I am stumped.  Can someone please help me with this?  Thanks.  B--

I have to ask "Why are you copying to another track?"  what's the point of having the exact same clip on two tracks.  If you want to hear that track in both speakers, then just pan that one clip to the "mid".

I'm sorry don't know why you are getting the loss of signal.

I did it before cause it seems to make everything much louder thats why, but not anymore.

 You are experiencing "phase cancelling" because one of the channels is 180 degrees out of phase with the other. To correct the problem, go into audio suite and apply an "invert" effect to ONLY ONE of the two channels - it doesn't matter which.

go into audio suite and apply an "invert" effect

Which, BTW,  is a bad solution if the phase inversion happens in monitoring.

If you switch your audio output to mono, what happens?

Is the panning different on these tracks?

You should search for any place in the chain where the phase may get shifted or flipped. Simple procedure involves creating tone media in the Avid Audio Tool, then splicing that tone into (two) different tracks, and measure what happens.

Your original remark worries me, though:

I realize that when 2 pieces of the same audio playing exactly together, they will phase out one another

i so agree, a copied track which phases out another has another problem. But you should really look at your workflow. Copying a track to increase volume is a bad workflow... just set the pan to mid and use the audio level to increase the level... and you should be checking your monitoring system as there is a good chance you switched wires somewhere..

Menno

If someone really needs to boost the volume of some very low audio in a sequence beyond the +12 setting in the Audio Mixer faders, they can always switch to the AudioSuite, apply the Gain effect, bring up the wiindow and enter the number of decibels of gain (remember to cliick "OK" or it won't be entered), then render the effect in the timeline.

BEN3MAN:

when 2 pieces of the same audio playing exactly together, they will phase out one another, reducing frequencies

no,  O BEN3MAN, 2 COPIES of the same audio will only cancel each other when they are OUT OF PHASE. If they are IN phase, they will play properly, but as all have said- it's best to just raise the volume of the one (mono track, and these things ONLY apply to a mono track) you can find extra gain in a number of stages (called gain staging) within your signal path. Besides adding volume in the ways mentioned, you can add volume at specific frequencies with EQ, and also add volume with "output gain makeup" after a compressor. You would probably be wisest to export your audio to an audio app, as Avid's audio tools are merely adequate in a pinch, but there are much better apps for real audio work.

Just because you have successfully pasted a copy to a 2nd track before, doesn't mean that it's good gain staging or good audio technique! But lots of crazy stuff works fine! And who cares?!

Still, you should better analyze what's going on with your audio tracks- if/when your program is summed to mono you're probably just begging for trouble the way you're trying to do it! Try exporting to a decent audio program and clean up, polish, pump up!, and enhance your sound- then import it back to Avid. I recommend .wav's for import/export... but there are lots of options.

HTH-

Ev

Cool guys...lots of input for this!  The audio suite gain is a good solution which I knew about at one point but since I haven't edited in about a year, I completely forgot about.  Also, I may have an answer to what happened, I think somewhere along the line, my reciever got switched to the wrong setting.  I'm at work, but I will check it when I get home.  I have been panning it to center for the time being, but I just found it less of a hassle and faster just to copy and paste the track to increase the volume, for me anyway.  I will see if that audio suite gain trick will boost my levels to the needed levels.  Thanks everyone.  B--

The invert audio solution fixed my problem....BIG Thanks....!!!

 You're quite welcome, Ben. I'm glad to help and glad that worked out for you.

teddylevy:

If someone really needs to boost the volume of some very low audio in a sequence beyond the +12 setting in the Audio Mixer faders, they can always switch to the AudioSuite, apply the Gain effect, bring up the wiindow and enter the number of decibels of gain (remember to cliick "OK" or it won't be entered), then render the effect in the timeline.

I dislike rendering most times... so I often use the Automation Gain to get extra boost after I maxed out the +12 in the Mixer.