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Autolevels for Audio
Hello, I am doing a school project that requires interviewing other students. I got the footage and well… There was only one channel of audio coming from a hand mic. The other problem is that the interviewer had the mic closer to his mouth when talking than the subjects, so their voice is super loud and the subject’s voice is very quiet.
Our school computers have Vegas Video loaded on them, and I’m not too familiar with this package. I would like to know if there is any filter or FX chain items that can do some kind of auto leveling of the sound? I just want everyone’s voice to be about the same level.
what I’ve been doing (and it’s a PINA) is looking at the wave form and keyframing the audio evelope…. It does a pretty good job, but I feel like there MUST be an easier way!!
Thank you for any help! -
4 Replies
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There is a free program called Levalator that will do a pretty good job of auto-leveling an interview. It was designed specifically for this purpose to be used with podcasts.
You can also use a compressor (either Track Compressor or Wave Hammer) to make the low parts louder and the loud parts lower (as the name implies it “compresses” the dynamic range of the audio).
~jr
http://www.johnrofrano.com
http://www.vasst.com -
On the softer parts split the audio track, normalize the clip, and use the volume handle to set the relative volume. I’d advise doing that before (or instead of) adding a compressor or similar to the entire track… bringing them more into line manually.
If Vegas’s volume handle went up (added gain) from the 0 point like most audio editors you wouldn’t have to normalize but it doesn’t, so normalize the soft clips and pull it down to generally match levels.
After that slap on a compressor if you want. YMMV but I don’t find that automatic levelors generally work as well without some manual editing first.
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[Lawrence Farr] ” I’d advise doing that before (or instead of) adding a compressor or similar to the entire track… bringing them more into line manually.”
BTW… I would advise the same!
You were looking for a one-click quick fix, but the correct way to do this is with audio envelopes and normalizing. Yes it takes a long time…. but most things of quality do.
~jr
http://www.johnrofrano.com
http://www.vasst.com -
Yeah, I ended up manually controlling everything with the envelopes. I guess I just was being lazy and wanted something automatic. I’m actually a software developer by profession, so I just figured that you could determanistically decide what the optimal level for audio would be and build some kind of plugin to do all of that… I guess it’s a little more complicated than that (?) IDK, I just figure anything that a trained monkey like me, w/o any training, could do would be a problem that software could easily do.
Thanks for the help!
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