Useful tools for editors. Part 6.
By S Simmons. Filed in Editing, Useful tools for editors |
The Levelator is a handy little drag and drop tool that takes an audio file and attempts to level out the volume. A quote on the developer’s site says: “It’s not a compressor, normalizer or limiter although it contains all three.” I read about the Levelator on a post at Jake Ludington’s Digital Lifestyle. He has posted a couple of before and after waveforms shots to visually show the difference that the program achieves. I did some tests on a project I am working on and it did do exactly what it says. Here’s a before and after sample:
aiff after Levelator 1.3 mb
I think that the overall result might raise the overall levels a bit too much (especially bringing up the background noise) for mission critical work but if you have a less critical instance where you need to smooth out volume levels then the tool could be quite helpful. Plus you can always bring the volume back down a bit in the final mix. It’s also nice that when you drop a file on to be converted it makes a new piece of media and doesn’t hurt the old one. And best of all .. it’s free. Check out the developer site here.
Sunday, October 1st 2006 at 8:11 pm
Thanks for the feedback. Just curious about your basis for suggesting that the overall levels might be too high. This is one area which we’ve researched for more than 18 months, talking to audio engineers and broadcast engineers. We’ve analyzed a huge number of radio programs and podcasts and run opinion polls. The only standards that we could find for loudness are published by the BBC, and they’re a bit outdated since they’re primarily about analog audio.
I’m not trying to change your mind, just trying to determine your standard for the proper RMS loudness of an audio file.
Thanks.
Doug Kaye, CTO
GigaVox Media
Sunday, October 1st 2006 at 8:27 pm
You’re welcome on the feedback and thanks for such a handy little (free!) tool. I think my comments about the levels being too hot are mainly geared toward my main field of usage, post production for film and video. In the examples I posted the rustling is quite amplified though that may not be the best example. I do think for radio shows and podcasts, where audio quality might not be as high a priority as for film and television work, I think it’s a great tool. And I can actually see a place for it in my arsenal for a lot of on-camera interview stuff and industrials. The final step of my audio mix usually consists of riding the levels word for word and that can get around the problems of raising the background noise in a clip but we have to remember the old phrase, garbage in, garbage out. If you have a good clean background to begin with then the Levelator should work like a charm.