Video QuickTips

I came across this little freebie a while back, and just had a chance to put it to use. take the situation: a friend uses a disposable dvd camcorder to videotape an interview. Obviously the camera operators voice is going to be louder than that of the interview subject because they are limited to using the tiny on-board microphone. How do you make the interview subject’s voice louder without blowing the viewers ear drums out with the camera operator’s voice?  You could export the audio into an editor like Audacity, Soundforge or Audition. Apply compression, then try to normalize, you might get decent results, but there must be an easier way right? 

There is. The Conversations Network is a listener-supported non-profit podcast network brought to you by a global team of passionate audio/video producers and editors.  they have devised this nifty little program called the Levelator to handle just this situation.

It’s a small, free program, and the User Interface couldn’t be easier. You open the program and get a splash screen, you then drag your audio file and drop it onto the spalsh screen and then sit back and watch as the progress bar moves. Levelator does it’s thing and creates a new file in the same directory as the original file.  Give it a listen yourself.

The first part of the file is the original sound file, the second half  is the same file after it has gone through The Levelator.

It’s a free program, but The Conversation Network relies on donations, so if you find this program useful, make a donation. You can get The Levalator here