Audio has alternating problem from OLD VHS

[roglopes]

Dear friends
I'm converting an old VHS to DVD but the beginning of this sudio (+ or - 18 minutes) has a problem, it has alternating low volume (suffocate) and normal volume (good quality).
The remainder (after 18 minutes) has a good quality.
I'm using Audacity, there exists a filter tha correct this alternaing problem?
Thanks and sorry about my bad english.

[dvd3500]

Normalizing might help.

[roglopes]

No, I already normalize and the problem continue.

[Steve Stepoway]

Normalizing the whole track won't help if you have sections of normal volume. Have you tried processing the low sections independently? Select a section where it's low and normalize it by itself. I think you are going to have to do it section by section.

Steve

[mikiem]

Perhaps another way of wording it... In a different setup you might record the audio thru a mixer, turning the volume up when you needed to. Working with your already recorded (captured) audio, have to more or less do the same thing -- increase volume only when needed.

Software can't do it automatically because it doesn't know the volume's too low -- what if it was just really quiet? Ideally I think you'd use an envelope setup in something like Vegas, if I might suggest downloading the trial. You still would need to increase the volume for just those problem sections, but this would allow you to do it more gradually, with a taper rather then an on/off switch sort of thing at the begining and end of the selection.

That said, might look at some of the lower end audio apps -- the stuff bundled with programs like Roxio etc... Many have a feature for matching the track's volume for music CDs. *Might* be a way to get one of those to work I imagine.