Cleaning up voice recordings

Hi all,

I’ve been doing interviews over a speaker telephone using both an iphone and a mp3 recorder / player to record. I’ve done 8 so far and three of them (all to the same person) have been murky and almost impossible to hear. The recording of my own voice is clear but that’s not of any use to me. Is there a way I can enhance his voice so that I can transcribe what he’s saying? I’ve been playing around a bit with noise reduction but I’m trying to finish my thesis and don’t have time to try and learn software. Can anyone help? Thanks. Manda.

If the other person’s voice is much quieter than yours, dynamic range compression would help:
it can make both the voices the same volume.

Audacity is shipped with a compressor, (in “Effect” menu).
“Chris’s compressor” plugin is better … http://theaudacitytopodcast.com/chriss-dynamic-compressor-plugin-for-audacity/