Podcasters face many challenges. One of those is a reputation for substandard audio production values. This reputation is in some cases, well deserved. Because the barrier to entry into podcasting is so low, many podcasters haven't had to obtain the training or equipment necessary to bring their audio recording skills up to par.
And one of the first places podcasting newbies have trouble is maintaining a consistent audio level. Microphone variations, mic distance and technique problems, multiple audio sources, different voice characteristics, all contribute to peak loudness problems. Seasoned engineers know how to "ride" levels during recording to minimize these issues. But most podcasters don't have the luxury of a seasoned engineering staff.
Gigavox Media, part of Doug Kaye's IT Conversations Network, has come up with a free, solution to this problem for podcasters called the Levelator.
The Levelator runs under OSX 10.4 (Tiger) or better and, on Windows 2000m XP or Vista (JRE V.5 required.)
It works like a compressor, normalizer and limiter all wrapped into one piece of post processing software.
Drag either a WAV or AIFF file onto the Levelator's interface, and it goes to work. The result is a better sounding, level podcast. But don't worry, your original file gets treated like a photographic negative. It's untouched, so if you don't like the result, you can proceed with your original.
The program acts like an intelligent RMS-based compressor/limiter. But what's really cool is that it has a look-ahead feature. This allows it to anticipate upcoming level variations and adjust them according to need.
I tried the Levelator on several files and it works. It's very simple, doesn't offer any controls, and what you see is what you get. It's in BETA and may eventually need some tweaking. But I have no doubt that in its present form, it will be a very valuable tool for any podcaster.
For more on podcasting, visit my site PodcastingTricks.com
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