One clip becomes louder when merging clips in Adobe Audition

Question

I have a sound recording of a Zoom meeting that I am using for a podcast. I have separate tracks for the hosts, but for this person I sadly only have the Zoom recording, which is doable but isn't great. So I would like to make it a little bit louder and clearer. The file also included the other people talking, which I have cut out of the clip. I thought it would be smart to take the parts I need, merge them, and then normalize to -3 dB or -6 dB.

However, when I merge the clips, one part suddenly becomes much louder than the rest. Before merging:

After merging:

What can I do make the parts that I need a bit louder?

Answer 1

Here's what I think is happening:

The clip that shows louder after merging is louder before merging.

With only your screen grabs to go on, it looks like the individual files are rendering and image of the waveform they contain so that it's the best fit for the box they're show in. This means that there's no visual difference between the loud clip and the softer clips.

When you merge the clips together you can suddenly see their relative volumes and so the louder clip show out agains the quieter ones.

Again, without the actual files and only your screen grabs, it's really difficult to devine what the real problem is but I would go back and check; A) the numerical values for the levels in the loud clip compared to the quieter ones, and B) any special settings/automation you might have differently on the loud clip compared to the quieter ones.