I have a client who records a radio show and sends the raw files to me for post-production. He doesn’t know a whole lot about recording, thus, his levels are all over the board, which creates more work for me.
My regular routine is (Step 1) to highlight a low-level section, normalize it and repeat the process until the entire track looks fairly level; (Step 2) compress the track to even the volume some more.
Is there an effect or tool that will even out the volume levels with one click – bringing up the low levels to match the high volume levels?
I use Chris’s Compressor on a completely uncontrolled podcast to turn it magically into the broadcast version which goes through the broadcast transmitter compressors and limiters. It’s a dead ringer and it makes the podcast much easier to listen to.
This is an illustration of the sound levels. Original, Default compression values and changing the first value, Compress ratio from 0.5 to 0.77.
The podcast version of the show looks a lot like your raw presentation. Chris is a look-ahead compressor, so it doesn’t have any obvious pumping or other compression artifacts. You can fake it out like you can fake out most compressors, but it’s hard to do.
You should put “something real” at the first two or three seconds of the show to give Chris something to “chew on.” Chris doesn’t like Digital “0” at the beginning. Anything. Two seconds of noise. You can shear it off after Chris is done. That’s the only shortcoming I know of.
