Topic: Match channel volumes

[travelinbeat]

Hi, I'm wondering if anyone knows of an easy way to match channel volumes.  I don't want it to be exactly the same throughout each second of the recording, but maybe an average the two as re-estimated every 20-30 seconds or what ever.  Seems like there should be some function on some program capable of doing this; you folks know of any? 

Thanks in advance!

[live2496]

There are probably other software's that do this but you could use Har-Bal. www.har-bal.com

This is an equalizer, and it works with stereo tracks or mono tracks. But it has a match volume feature.

How you would do this is to load a track up into it and then open the .anl file from that recording as a reference file.
The .anl file is created in the same folder as your audio track.

Then open the file you want to match and go to Equalizer->Match Loudness
It will match the loudness of the currently open file to the reference.

Use the record button to render the new file.

They have a forum if you want to research the software a bit more.

[John Kary]

Can you tell us more on what your source material is and why the two sources are not matched?  Ultimately, what are you trying to accomplish?

[travelinbeat]

The sources are very close, I just find that somewhere between my mics (CA-11's / CA-14's), my pre (ST9100), and my iRiver (especially with it's ability to set channel volumes separately), I often end up with a recording that may have one channel anywhere from .5 - 2 or 3 dB out of sync.

[live2496]

I did some looking around in Samplitude this morning...

In this case you would need left and right split into separate files and put them on adjacent tracks.
Then use the normalize function. (I assume you would leave one channel alone and boost the channel that is a bit lower.)

The key here is that Samplitude tells you how many db of change that you new setting will result in when you change it by a percent or normalize to a certain db value. So it's just a matter of plugging in numbers until you get a setting where both channels match (in db).

Matching is based upon the whole track. I think it would be a calculated RMS value.