How to Manage Audio levels for a podcast using Audacity
I was recently asked how to get audio for a podcast to be louder when using Audacity to edit. There more to it than just turning it up.
Audacity is popular because it’s free. I don’t think it’s the most intuitive but it is widely used anyways.
In general terms you’re going to want to Compress the audio. Basically it brings UP the overall volume so the quieter parts are louder, but pushes the louder parts down to keep it from clipping or distorting.
Audacity is able to do this broadly and should get you some improvement.
Here are the steps I’d take if editing with Audacity:
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Ctrl-A (to select the entire audio file)
Effect, Amplify
- "New Peak Amplitude(db) = -6.0
This will bring the overall level of the file to a place that gives the other steps room to work.
When recording, too quite is better than too loud. And, when possible, avoid changing levels mid-recording.
Effect, Compressor
- Use defaults
Threshold -12
Noise floor -40
Ratio 2:1
Attack Time 0.20
Release Time 1.0
Select Make-up gain for 0 db after compression
Unselect Compress based on Peaks
This brings the quite parts up, and has an invisible hand the holds the louder peaks down.
Effect, Limiter
- "Limit to (db)" = -3.00
This will keep the overall loudness below 0.00 or worse any “+” amount. This is a good target for dialog.
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Conculsion
Running this general process on the host audio and separately on the guest audio, gets both sides of the conversation to the same perceived ‘loudness’ avoiding the situation where one side seems much louder or quieter than the other.
All of these settings are general and can be tweaked depending on what sound you want and/or what problems you’re trying to correct. But, given a consistent recording they should point you in the right direction.
Audacity and has good overview of what is going on with Compression in their built-in help: file:///C:/Program%20Files%20(x86)/audacity/help/manual/man/compressor.html