This is my problem, I have an mp3 recording of two people during a conversation. One person is speaking quieter than the other which makes it difficult to understand the conversation.
I want to raise the volume and improve on the clarity of the quieter persons voice and quieten down the louder voice. Its been suggested that I first amplify the whole recording and then use a compression tool to flatten out the louder areas. After several days of trying I've not been able to achieve the clarity I need. I have on occasions improved matters slightly only to loose it when making further
adjustments.
I'd like to ask what setting should I be used in a sound editor and compression tool to achieve more clarity and volume please.
-Alan
I don't think anyone is going to be able to tell you how to use your compressor in this case, mainly because each situation is different.
If you want the best results then a single processing chain isn't going to get you there. You need to do some work. Copy the track and silence one voice everywhere in the first track and the other voice in the second track, so you have two separate tracks.
An additional problem may be that the quieter speaker has more room reverberation once you bring the level into the same area as the close speaker, so a little bit of fast gate might help this.
If your target broadcast medium is stereo then panning them slightly apart is an added advantage of splitting which can make the dialogue more intelligable.
-Andy
From Sound Design List April 2008
