How to Adjust Bass in Audacity

Bass boost is useful when adding finishing touches to an audio track, or if you simply prefer to listen to audio with enhanced bass.

Steps

  1. Image titled Audacity with sound.png
    1
    Select part of your audio track, or leave it be if you plan to bass boost all of it. You may want to use "Effect" -> "Amplify" if your audio isn't loud enough (make sure "New Peak Amplitude" is set at 0.0) before proceeding to the next step.
  2. Image titled Audacity select Normalize (cropped).png
    2
    Click "Effect", then "Normalize". Normalization is used to shrink the height of the sound waves without making the sound itself quieter. This will make room for adding bass boost.
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  3. Image titled Audacity change Normalize to negative 10 (cropped).png
    3
    Set "Normalize maximum amplitude" to -10.0 dB. That is the recommended number, but don't adjust it much lower than -10 or the audio may sound noticeably quieter. Don't set it too much higher than -10 either, since it may cause distortion when you try to increase the bass. When you're done, click "OK".
  4. Image titled Audacity select Bass and Treble (cropped).png
    4
    Click "Effect", then "Bass and Treble".
  5. 5
    Drag the handle next to "Bass (dB)". Increase it, then click "Start Playback" to test the sound. If it sounds distorted, adjust the handle. Increase the treble if you'd like, but preferably not as much as the bass.
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Warnings

  • If sharing audio online with a considerable amount of bass boost, add a (Bass Boosted) tag to the track's name to let people know.
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  • Too much bass boost or distortion may break headphones if they don't support bass boost.
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About This Article

wikiHow is a “wiki,” similar to Wikipedia, which means that many of our articles are co-written by multiple authors. To create this article, volunteer authors worked to edit and improve it over time. This article has been viewed 78,273 times.
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Co-authors: 5
Updated: August 4, 2021
Views: 78,273
Categories: Audacity
Article SummaryX

1. Set "Normalize" to -10.0.
2. Set "Bass and Treble" to 10 or higher.

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