New please help?

[l3ec]

Hi,
I'm sorry if i am posting this in the wrong place or if it has already been answered previously - i have had a quick glance over the forums and can't see anything. Also i am working on a tight framework so was wondering if anyone can provide me with the answers asap .
Basically i am creating a dichotic listening test for a psychology experiment - i have a number of recordings of words spoken in different emotional tones. These all have to be equal length and volume - i have used the change tempo tool to edit the length of these however it has made them sound a bit robotic like - any other ideas of what might be a better tool?
Also is there any tools i can use to make these words all be exactly (or near enough exact) volume? This is an essential requirement as two different words will be presented to each ear at the same time so they need to be exactly equal.
If any one could give me any pointers i would appreciate it greatly!! Or even if not possible on audacity any other free software that i may be able to do this on.
Many thanks!
Becky

[kozikowski]

The volume change should be pretty easy with the Normalize tool. That tool changes the waveforms of left and right individually until they come out even. It doesn't strictly know about loudness or volume, but if the work is all spoken voices, it should be close enough. Large, learned documents have been written about perceived loudness. This is not trivial and you may need to fine tune by hand in a quiet room.

The "change" tools (pitch, tempo, etc) only work best within a very narrow range and then only on the very best perfect quality uncompressed sound. For example, singing pitch correction only works over about two piano notes before the singer starts sounding like a space alien.

This is where people producing work in MP3 get killed. MP3 creates damage, and the damage gets changed in addition to the voice. How did you capture the voices or where did they come from?

Koz