Audio - Not normalzie, but average it out?

DWhitevidman wrote on 1/24/2010, 9:28 AM
Still working on my very recent recording of currently over 6 hours of various guest speakers facilitating a training session with another 6 hours to record next weekend. This "video job" is more of an exercise in learning to record and edit audio for comfortable listening levels.

As mentioned in a very recent post about recording using vegas and a laptop getting noise, I've recorded in a small conference room about 20 x 30 ft, the speaker, who I mic with a laviler, and to record group questions, have three conference table mics on a long table in the middle of the group on a seperate table from where they are setting to reduce paper shuffling noises.

So, I'm able to control the ambient mics levels keeping the low or muted until the questions begin to roll at the end of each presentation, then turn up each one individually near the person asking a question. Works ok.

As the each new speaker begins, I adjust the gain to pick a middle point where the volume is comfortable.

So to the question.
Maybe I'm striving for too close to perfection, I don't know, but is there a way to average out the loud portions and soft portions coming from the laviler captured audio? There are times a speaker may look down at their notes, and of course their volume increases quite dramatically. Other times they may simply begin speaking softer, then unexpectedly get a little loud.

It's pretty much impossible to anticipate these changes on the fly while recording and I know how to use the audio gain line for each clip combined with an audio envelope, but I'm hoping for something that I might be able to apply for automatic averaging.

Comments

Opampman wrote on 1/24/2010, 9:46 AM
Have you tried using the Levelator on the captured audio?

http://www.conversationsnetwork.org/levelator/
ingvarai wrote on 1/24/2010, 9:46 AM
Try the built in Track Compressor. If you click the Track FX.. icon on your sound track, you will see the three default FX added by Vegas. Maybe the Track Compressor will satisfy your needs, set a short attack and a long release (up to 5 seconds) value. Hopefully you will not get much "noise pumping" with a long release value.
Ingvar
DWhitevidman wrote on 1/24/2010, 11:12 AM
Well thanks to both reply's. I first tried the built in Track FX as suggested and granted I'm not to familiar with it, but I wasn't noticing the level of reducing high levels and increasing the low levels I was looking for.

While I was playing with the Track FX in Vegas, I had downloaded The Levelator 2 and had loaded one clip track about 30 mins long into Acid, rendered it to a wav file, then dropped it onto the Levelator screen. Around 4-5 minutes later it was done, dropped the result back into Vegas on a new audio track, and yes it levels things off quite nicely. Seems to have done just what I needed. It even reduced some mic pops enough that I don't think I'll need to reduce them further with a volume envelope.

Thanks so much to the both of you!
Opampman wrote on 1/24/2010, 3:33 PM
Glad to hear the Levelator worked for you. I use it all the time and it solves many problems. Once-in-a-while I get a strange phasing but that's only about 2% of the tracks I do. Otherwise, unless I'm doing something for dramatic use in 5.1 surround, the Levalator is a lifesaver.
richard-amirault wrote on 1/24/2010, 5:56 PM
I use it and it works great, but note that the Levelator is only for voice files. If you have any music on your file the results you get may not be satisfactory.
musicvid10 wrote on 1/24/2010, 6:52 PM
Levolator is an amazing solution for conference audio. It is not a general use application nor is it applicable for high quality (music) purposes. Hope this clarifies.
Opampman wrote on 1/24/2010, 7:47 PM
I was responding to the problem of the conference audio. I didn't mean to imply it was for music files - low or high quality. However, I have used it on occasion for music files and sometimes it works great...sometimes not worth a hoot!
John_Cline wrote on 1/24/2010, 7:58 PM
Along the same lines as Levelator but certainly not free is a tremendous plugin from WAVES called "MaxxVolume." I do a lot of voiceover work and spoken word recordings, both studio and live, and I run every bit of it through MaxxVolume. It is magic and extremely high quality. Levelator can also be amazing but just as often it produces unusable results.

MaxxVolume page on the WAVES website
plasmavideo wrote on 1/25/2010, 9:12 AM
Hey, thanks for the Levelator tip. I just ran some voice audio destined for our phone system's menu and commercial playout that I purposely recorded "all over the place" through it, and it did an amazing job of making the levels equal without much artifacting.

Definitely one for my toolkit.
ingvarai wrote on 1/25/2010, 9:19 AM
MaxxVolume - does it really cost $1200?
Ingvar
John_Cline wrote on 1/25/2010, 12:58 PM
No, it "only" costs $600 when purchased through the WAVES online store. It can be had much cheaper elsewhere (but not as cheap as Levelator.)
Jøran Toresen wrote on 1/25/2010, 1:04 PM
John, where is ”elsewhere”?

Jøran Toresen
John_Cline wrote on 1/25/2010, 1:17 PM
B&H Photo and Sweetwater.com both have it for $450.

I did notice that the TDM version of the plugin actually does list for $1,200.
PeterDuke wrote on 1/27/2010, 3:07 AM
Before buying anything new, check out your favourite audio editor to see what it can do. Look for dynamics compressor or similar.