LEVELER Effect normalize audio Peaks & Valleys

Audacity Help Forum Windows
1

Hi,
I love audacity. I use it for my podcast. I initially was excited about the leveler effect because I thought it would raise the volume of the softer spoken segments and lower the volume of the loud or clippy segments while blending the seams of the different audio clips making for a more pleasant flowing podcast episode. I tried the moderate setting first, and I did visually notice some evening out and what appeared to be an over-all raising for the volume. Anything over moderate seems to modify the quality and leave it with a harshness. If you look at the top of a produced mp3 song shape in the editor, it’s very consistent and level. I’m looking for advice to achieve this between the spoken word segments, the many different voices, and how those segments flow into music clips. Maybe the leveler effect isnt’ what I need.

I’m using audacity 2.0.2, windows 7 Home sp1

thanks
jm

2

Use the ‘Compressor’ effect. I use the following settings:

3

The limitations of Leveler are noted in the Manual http://manual.audacityteam.org/o/man/leveller.html .

Documentation for Compressor is here http://manual.audacityteam.org/o/man/compressor.html .

You can install an optional “Chris’ Compressor” as a Nyquist plug-in which may be simpler to use. Please see here http://wiki.audacityteam.org/wiki/Compressor#alternative .


Gale

4

I rarely use it myself, but Chris’s dynamic compressor gets a lot of recommendations by users on this forum for this type of job.