The Levelator™ …
GigaVox Media has released the Levelator™, an easy to use stand alone application that will simplify your post production work-flow.
Often we are forced to manually ‘level’ problematic audio clips that contain wide variations in peak loudness. For example:
A content producer records an interview with a single hand-held microphone. Due to microphone distance variations and unique vocal characteristics of the host and guest, it’s very possible the recorded audio will be problematic in terms of peak loudness.
In the past, it was necessary to manually address these variations by ‘leveling’ the audio before the final distribution file was processed and encoded. Needless to say this will require a good amount of time, effort, and experience.
Enter the Levelator™. Simply drag any AIFF or WAV file into this stand-alone software processor. Your original file will remain as is, and you will be provided with a processed copy that has been automatically leveled and maximized in terms of loudness. In fact, the processor performs Compression, RMS Normalization and Intelligent Peak Limiting in one step, correcting medium-term variations in loudness. This initial beta release is available for free [non-commercial use only].
-ptfigg.
I heard about this on TWIT. Anyone compared using this one step tool with other hardware/software solutions?
Jay,
There is extensive discussion at the Levelator Forum:
http://www.gigavox.com/forum/viewforum.php?id=15
I’ll post additional info here as it becomes available. Have you worked with the processor yet?
-ptfigg.
Great, Thanks.
I love this application. Thanks to everyone at GigaVox for making this available.
Paul, since the Levelator performs general compression, RMS norm., and peak limiting, do you feel the Levelator replaces Final Plug 5 as a near final step in the audio production chain?
Thanks.
Hi Shayne,
This is an interesting issue. Here are my thoughts:
The Levelator was designed to perform unique level management in problematic audio files that have apparent wide variations in peak loudness. If you pass a high quality audio file through the Levelator that does not have apparent peak loudness variations, it will serve you well as an RMS Normalizer, and provide consistent results in terms of a resulting reference level. The RMS value will be at or near -18.50 dB RMS consistently. My point is - there will be no guessing in terms of the relationship between selected parameters and results provided that is the common issue at hand when working with Final Plug or something similar.
Final Plug will do a great job with a high quality file that does not contain aggressive variations in loudness. On the other hand - there will be a noticeable difference in the results if you present a problematic example to Final Plug and compare the processed result to the same example processed by the Levelator.
Compressors and limiters are designed to address/correct short term variations in loudness. The Levelator was designed to address medium term variations. It is based on this concept that the end result will vary, and as I stated, it all depends on the condition of the original file.
-ptfigg.