Hello I am working on an eLearning project and my expert recording the voice narration did so on different days and times. He did use the same Logistics mic and did not change any of the preferences. The sound level of the various recordings is uneven in volume. So when I go from slide to slide in Artuculate, the sound is different for many of the slides. Not show stopping, but annoying.
Is there a way to ‘even’ this out so it sounds consistent? Thanks Much!
Try the amplify effect - Amplify can make a recording louder if you amplify by a positive amount, or quieter if you amplify by a negative amount. If there are some recordings that are very quiet, try amplifying them to make them a bit louder. If there are some recordings that are very loud, try amplifying them (by a negative amount) to make them a bit quieter.
Use compression to even out the sound. So use a preset that will always boost lows/drop highs to a set point (say -1db), that way all your slides will be adjusted to said setting.
Damien
Which compressor do you have in mind? There is no simple way to do what you wrote using the Audacity Compressor (except that you can set make-up gain to an unconfigurable 0 dB).
Compression can be useful for speech, and can be used as a way to reduce loud noise spikes which may otherwise prevent you amplifying the speech if it is too quiet. But it still may not be what pipop wants.
What you could do as another alternative is to process the files with an implementation of Replay Gain, such as MP3 Gain (if they are MP3 files) or WaveGain (if they are WAV files).
This should be less work than doing it manually. It may also be better in that it tries to make files “equally loud” on the basis of perceived (“average”) loudness rather than relying on the loudest “peak” sound to determine how loud the file sounds.
This average versus peak distinction may not matter so much for speech, but it’s often important for music.
Gale
Chris’s Compressor is an all-in one compression tool whose purpose is to even out volume variations.
http://theaudacitytopodcast.com/chriss-dynamic-compressor-plugin-for-audacity/
I use it to even out volume variations in a talk show so I can listen in the car without constantly turning the player up and down.
Change the first value, compression up to get a tighter, more even show. I use 0.77 instead of the default value of 0.5.
Koz
Yes Chris’ compression is really good. Especially for vocal/podcasting which is what I use it for. You don’t need to really understand the sliders as they are set by default quite well. He gives a good simple description at the top of the plugin also.
When it comes to music (evening out an Mp3 or something) I tend to use: Antress: Modern Compressor. Here’s a stack of free plugins that seem quite good: http://antress.blogspot.com.au/
Damien
Yes I’ve used them and like them - but Windows only.
Correct me, but Chris runs on all three computer types?
Koz
Yes, as it’s Nyquist. 
And I assume that we’re talking about using its “Maximum Amplitude” control to set peak amplitude?
Gale
I guess you could if you wanted to. I have literally never touched any of the settings other than the first one – Compression Ratio. I change it from the default 0.5 to 0.77 which approximates very closely the compression of local radio stations.
The default settings produce a loud, dense, well behaved recording with high peaks that never produce red overload bars.
Default:
Compression Ratio 0.5
Hardness 0.5
Floor -32
Noise Gate 0.0
Maximum Amplitude 0.99
It does its intended job so well, making performances gracefully audible in the car/truck/lorry, that I never found a need to trim any of the settings except the first one. I suspect the show would be a little less dense/loud if I left the compression at 0.5 – used the compressor straight out of the plastic wrap.
I record “Car Talk” for playback in the truck. The two performers have explosive voices and the show is almost impossible to listen to in a high environment noise level. Chris solves the problem nicely and the post production show is remarkably similar to the same show presented over the air after the radio station’s compressors.
This is not surprising because this environment was the design goal of the program.
Koz
Should make it a default compressor in the next Audacity Release. Have it has “Podcast Compression”
Damien
The 1.2.6 version cannot be included as it was released with a “non distributable” license. The author of theaudacitytopodcast has been given special dispensation to distribute the plug-in.
The 1.2.7 beta version was released under a MIT (open source) license, so that can be distributed, but there are some problems with that version that would need to be fixed.