Free loudness optimiser for spoken word

Posted by Gavin Brockis on Thursday 16 April 2009 at 2:29pm
Tags: audio editing | podcasts | software | sound recordings |

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Many casual recordings suffer from differences in the levels of different speakers' voices, or variations in level caused by a speaker moving about. Even carefully planned location sessions may not present the opportunity to place microphones exactly where you might wish, resulting in alternating quiet and loud sections. Many post-production tools offer the facilities to correct this problem - as well as others of insufficient or inconsistent level - such as compressors, limiters, sonic maximisers and normalisation. However, the process is often laborious, and may require specialist skills and knowledge.

At the other end of the scale, and offered free-of-charge by the non-profit Conversations Network of California is their tool The Levelator. With a simple drag-and-drop interface, and no user adjustments required (or indeed possible) at all, The Levelator makes a series of adjustments throughout the WAV or AIFF file with which it is supplied, and aims to compensate for these differences in level and achieve maximum and consistent subjective loudness, without the need for advanced audio engineering skills. After deliberately making some poor recordings (which naturally we found quite difficult...) our tests indicated excellent results with the simplest interface imaginable. All popular operating systems are supported, and their development process is very transparent. Well worth a look for all our users dealing with spoken word recordings at any level (sic)

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