Changing Volume Levels

Question

1.) When raising or lowering the volume of an audio file, is there a way to know what -21 db is? Is this a fixed form of measurement, or is it based on the audio levels of the original file?
2.) Is there a way to visually see when noise is being introduced when the "Level" is raised in the Viewer?
3.) When wanting to raise volume, when is it better to raise the Levels, vs. Copying and pasting the track to increase the volume? Which situations work best for what?
Thanks!!!

Answer 1

1.) Are you asking about output level or gain level? By default, all FW captured audio comes into FCP with a gain level of 0db, regardless of it's output level. Gain level (the amount of adjustment from the default setting) can be seen in the Viewer window. Output level can be seen on the meters.
2.) Not unless you're really, really good a reading waveforms.
3.) Both methods achieve the same thing; raising the output level (volume). Of course, both methods also raise the noise floor. Duplicating the clip on the Timeline is much like assigning an analog mixer's channel to an additional bus.
You can also use the Dynamic Processor filter to raise the level beyond FCP's +12db gain limit.
-DH