How to make volume consistent? ...Normalize? Speech Leveler?

Forum|Forum|6 years ago
November 15, 2019
2 replies
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I'm processing my first audiobook files. I'm making good progress removing unwanted sounds. I'm aware of the requirements for submitting to ACX.

I notice in a big file that the sound wave varies a bit in mass and height. I have done Match Loudness across files. I made them all -21 Total RMS. I'm not positive what that means but the Amplitude Stats look similar now. Still when I look at the wave for an hour-long file in one view I notice some wandering up and down in overall height of the outer "fuzziness" and the center solid mass. Should I do something to level that out? I've seen "Normalize" mentioned. There's also Speech Leveler. ? Should I be making the Total RMS and *Average* RMS all be consistent across files? Thanks!

How to

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Mike Russell

Inspiring

There are plenty of great tips on this forum already as Steve mentions.

A few pointers from me. I wouldn't use Speech Volume Leveler on an ACX recording. It can have a habit of sucking up the quiet bits and causing hiss depending on recorded quality. It can also accentuate breaths.

I'd add in some light compression to even out the up and downs of your waveform and also consider a light noise gate. The noise gate will help with the noise floor requirement for ACX. You'll find both AutoGate and Compressor inside Effects > Ampliutde and Compression > Dynamics...

JeffOYBAuthor

Known Participant

Thanks. I didn't see any details about SL here. I did find some helpful basics at the official adobe features info site. But it was hard to find evaluation. Good to learn about this risk of a downside and lack of suitability to ACX. I'm starting to learn this. Took me a few days to figure it out on my own. Might have wasted a lot of hours creating hiss then trying to beat it back. I've processed all my files now. Some using SL. I'll review them to see what I think. If I went into a rabbit-hole and the results aren't impressive now that i've been a few days away from some of the work, well, i'll just redo it. My first file sure didn't sound good and i've already redone that.