How to "normalize" volume of voices?

[Its_Me]

I have one audio file with about 4 people talking. The problem is that one person speaks very loud and another person speaks very quietly. What are the ways that I can "normalize" the volume so that it is easier to hear the person who speaks very softly?

Thanks

[kozikowski]

Sure. Select the whole lecture and use Effects, Compressor.

Tuning those things is something of an artform, but the idea is the quieter speaker is affected by the steeper gain curve and the louder speaker by the shallower curve, thus evening them out. You will have to mess with the controls a bit because this tool can be made to sound really wacky.

For example, the tool has no way of knowing how loud each guest is, so that's the threshold control--set for a volume half-way between the loud and soft guest.

Nothing will make it sound perfect, however. There's no substitute for wiring each guest and ride each microphone for the correct level at a small mixer.

Koz

[Okieman]

This is an older thread, so I hope someone notices me chiming in and answers.

I also am trying to figure out how to deal with the "quiet speaker" problem. I read the reply but it didn't help because when I select part of the open file and go to effect/ Normalize, there is no "Gain," "curve." or "Threshold." I only have two options, one a box named "Remove any DC offset" and another named "Normalize maximum amplitude."

[kozikowski]

You're not in Effect > Compressor. You're in Effect > Normalize (or Amplify). Neither of these is going to do you any good.

You might also consider Chris's Compressor.

Chris's Compressor
http://pdf23ds.net/software/dynamic-compressor/

This is a "musical" compressor that was designed to sound good, not just an arithmetic tool.

Having done this a while, we learn to recognize certain problems. We can't bring up voices buried under other noises and we can't "bring up" the quality of a voice if you can't hear it at all. One of the common problems is trying to understand both sides of a phone call when one side is almost missing. You probably can't, even with the fancy software.

What's the show?

Oh, I missed an obvious problem. You're in Audacity 1.2. Stop that. Get Audacity 1.3 from here...

http://audacityteam.org/download/

You can put both versions on your machine but only use one at a time. Audacity 1.3 Projects will not open in 1.2.

Koz

[Okieman]

I got Audacity 1.3.12 beta and put Chris's Compressor in the plug-ins folder. Started Audacity and opened a music file to experiment with. Chris's Compressor doesn't show up anywhere under effects. Suggestions?

[steve]

I got Audacity 1.3.12 beta and put Chris's Compressor in the plug-ins folder. Started Audacity and opened a music file to experiment with. Chris's Compressor doesn't show up anywhere under effects. Suggestions?

You've posted in the Audacity 1.2 part of the forum.
Note that Audacity 1.2 and Audacity 1.3 have different installation folders.
If you have previously had Audacity 1.2 installed, check that you have put the plug-in into the Audacity 1.3 installation folder and not the Audacity 1.2 installation folder.

[kozikowski]

Chris's Compressor appears as "Compress Dynamics."

Try it with the default settings and then increase the first number if the effect isn't enough. I use 0.7 Compression Ratio for a little stiffer sound.

Koz

[Okieman]

Well, I looked inside C:Program FilesAudacity 1.3 Beta (Unicode)Plug-Ins and compress.ny was there (for some reason, windows shows the text of that file name in black, while the other .ny plug-ins are in blue text). Hmmm.

I wonder if either of these two items is the problem: 1-Within Program Files is a folder just named Audacity that contains a Plug-Ins subfolder. 2-Also in Program Files there is a folder named Audacity plugins.

[steve]

C:Program FilesAudacity 1.3 Beta (Unicode)Plug-Ins
is the correct folder for Audacity 1.3.12

The filenames are in blue because Windows has compressed them.

C:Program FilesAudacity
is your old Audacity 1.2.6 program folder.