At the National Arts Centre we usually record our podcasts in a space we like to call Studio P3. (P3 because it’s in the NAC underground parking garage; level 3). The space, aside from the occasional Harley-Davidson rumbling through the parkade, offers a relatively controllable studio environment.
More and more though, we’re trying out different locations and situations to record our shows to mix things up a bit. For instance, we’ve received great feedback on our NACOcast Live shows, where Chris Millard conducts interviews with guest artist either before or after an NAC Orchestra performance — Recorded in front of a live studio audience, as the pros like to say. A very recent example is the interview show with Pinchas Zukerman and soprano Measha Brueggergosman.
We’ll likely do more of these types of shows as the orchestra programmes more interviews and presentations as part of their audience enrichment initiatives. They’re fun to do and they make for great podcasts, but we’re finding that post-production of live audio can really stretch the boundaries of the time we have for post-production. The problem is that essentially, we’re in a cavernous lobby, using lapel mics, with multiple voice types and levels. We’re also mixing for the live audience through the PA as well as for the recording — Lots of stuff to juggle.
One could spend hours and hours in post-production, compressing, limiting, adjusting EQ and applying a myriad of audio plugins to make listening to 45 minutes of audio enjoyable to the podcast listener. Or, one could use The Levelator.
The Levelator is a free drag and drop application for MacOS, Windows and Linux. Without getting too too geeky, it performs a series of adjustments including gain optimization and RMS normalization. The results are quite surprising and extremely expedient. While we would never use a tool such as The Levelator for a studio recording — and definitely never on anything that included music — for live interviews, Skype conversations, re-purposed or archival audio, The Levelator can be a very effective time-saver.
Have you had experience with The Levelator? Leave a comment with your experiences and thoughts on the subject.