[LAU] Smoothing congas

[Philipp Überbacher]

On Sun, 14 Sep 2014 15:21:00 -0400
"jonetsu at teksavvy.com" <jonetsu at teksavvy.com> wrote:

> Hi,
> 
>   Congas (in this case Wavedrum congas # 19) have sometimes hits
> louder than others.  Eg. the player hits more forcefully at times.
> What would be a good way to even out the output (recorded in Ardour)
> so that the stronger hits do not stand out as much in the mix ?
> 
> Cheers.

Optimally the musician would play it again, because even if you
compress or otherwise modify the recording to smooth out the loud hits
they might still have a different character.

Besides the compression mentioned by Harry and others you might be able
to manually edit the individual hits. You could slice the hits and lower
volume, which would only work if the hits are clearly separate, but
would have the benefit that the character of the hits would remain
unaffected.
Another way would be to use some careful volume automation.

Regards,
Philipp