Thanks. I found the compression, but I'm not sure exactly how to set it. I"m playing... I'll search some more.

sound forge has this, audacity might, a normalize tool that makes all the volume equal throughout the entire clip. So a whisper is made loud & a yell is made quieter (well, they're all brought to ~the same volume)

The windows mixer for your sound card is always available real-time, and this controls the recording level for Vegas, Sound Forge, ACID, Audacity, etc.

I downloaded audacity and all the plugins that I could find. The help file says there is a normalcy, but I don't see it anywhere in audacity.. Exactly what I need. Vegas Video pro 8 doesn't have this? I guess not. I'll check out sound forge.
Thanks

HI, Are you talking about the master volume that comes with windows? or a different mixer I should look for ? This is exactly what I"m looking for! THanks

AH HA! I got it to work in Audacity! THANKYOU..
Now, can I use audacity to record my Skype conversations? Then I can use that mixer while I'm on live??? Right?

Thanks

More advice needed please.
I've done the normalize in Audacity, but it hasn't actually made our voices similiar. Hers is still much much softer than mine on the recording. more advice please?

Normalize isn't what you need. That doesn't change the relative volume between the voices at all. In fact, it preserves them perfectly. All normalize does is bring everything up a little louder, but everything together by the same amount.

What you need is compression or wave hammer. Vegas has both of these built in, so there's no need to use Audacity unless you want to. There's a little icon in the track header that looks like a small vertical rectangle with "ears" hanging off of each side. Click this to open up the "plugin chainer". This will show you a list of all the audio effects available in Vegas. If you're new and not entirely sure what you're doing then Wave Hammer is probably a better choice. It's a bit more automatic and less prone to messing things up than the compression filters are.

Probably the important controls to start fiddling with are threshhold and auto-gain. Turn the auto-gain on and set the threshhold value close to the peaks of the quietest voice. What this will do is reduce the volume on anything louder than that so they all match, then bring everything back up to full gain.

i meant use the RMS setting in sound forge (just downloaded & check with the demo). But wavehammer has the same thing, never used wavehammer before so I didn't know. :)

Thank you. I'm playing with it.. I think it is working. What has happened though is the background noise is more prevalent, and I can hear clicks and bangs I couldn't before.



Now How can I use Vegas Video Pro 8 to solve my problem of doing interviews over Skype, recording them, and seeing right away if the volumes aren't correct and need adjusting?
Ideas?

Thanks again!!!

If you record live audio into Vegas, the level meters in the track header will tell you what's happening. If one voice is much louder than the other, the quiet speaker should be asked to check their volume setting, make sure they stay near the mic, and maybe to speak louder, without of course peaking out which should be avoided at all costs.

I doubt that Skype is capable of transmitting really good quality sound, particularly with possible computer noise at either end, and another big factor is the type of mics being used.

Try Levelator.

http://www.conversationsnetwork.org/levelator/

I've recommended this little app before and still use it ocassionally on voice only files. It's free!

What has happened though is the background noise is more prevalent, and I can hear clicks and bangs I couldn't before.

that's what you asked for! :)

Oh my gosh Butchmoore. I love you.

PERFECT!