My Tools

On this page, you’ll find all the tools that I use for my creative work. Hopefully, this list will keep growing with time, and please feel free to recommend any other tools I should invest in, in the comments below:

My Gear

Video Editing

I use Hitfilm 4 Express. It has perhaps a little less functionality than Adobe After Effects and Adobe Premier Pro, but it’s free! Almost nothing beats the price of free. ｡◕‿◕｡

Audio Editing

Audacity for Audio Editing.

After Audacity, run your dialog/script/voice through Levelator. In my experience, the Levelator makes the audio sound more uniform, with perhaps a bit more bass, and more easier to listen and comprehend what the speaker is saying. According to Wikipedia, the Levelator:

The Levelator adjusts the audio levels within an audio segment by combining traditional discrete compression, normalization and limiting processing. By taking a global view of the data in various time segments (both long and short), the Levelator automatically balances various audio levels, such as multiple microphone levels in an interview or panel discussion, or segments combined from multiple sessions that were recorded at different levels. The Levelator can read and process PCM audio files of many sample rates and resolutions.

The Levelator reads the original audio file and creates a new audio file with balanced levels and a uniform overall volume level that is then saved in the same format as the original, but with “.output ” added to the file name. Only PCM audio source files are supported (most major file formats, including WAV and AIFF). Lossy compressed audio is not supported, encouraging use of The Levelator at the correct point in the production chain – i.e. before lossy encoding to the delivery format such as MP3.

And according to The Conversation Network, the Levelator:

So what is The Levelator®? It’s software that runs on Windows, OS X (universal binary), or Linux (Ubuntu) that adjusts the audio levels within your podcast or other audio file for variations from one speaker to the next, for example. It’s not a compressor, normalizer or limiter although it contains all three. It’s much more than those tools, and it’s much simpler to use. The UI is dirt-simple: Drag-and-drop any WAV or AIFF file onto The Leveler’s application window, and a few moments later you’ll find a new version which just sounds better.

…we realized all the components had to be of the same loudness or the results would sound awful…

The CNUploader’s normalizer acts similar to an intelligent RMS-based compressor/limiter combination, and it therefore affects primarily the short-term (transient) sounds and the long-term overall loudness of the file…

…So we asked him, “Bruce, do you you think you can write a leveler that corrects for medium-term variations in loudness instead of the short-term and long-term variatons processed by compressor/limiters and normalizers, respectively?” Bruce and Malcolm took on the challenge, and eight months later we began testing The Levelator…

So yea, I would personally recommend using the Levelator to improve the sound of your voice audio.