need to equalize audio

[Otterpup]

I have .wav file for which i am needing special equalization.The problem is that the louds are too loud and the softer quieter areas are too quiet.I need to bring the louds down and the softs up to where they are about the same loudness.It was my hope that there might be a program out there that would make this easy.I'm reminded of the one click "equalize" feature in Adobe Photoshop.That of course dims the bright areas and brightens the darker areas to where they are closer to the middle ground.Might there be such a one click feature in some audio editing program?

[julitomg]

Yes, theres is such a feature; it´s called Normalize and can be found in most audio edit programs like Soundforge, Audition or Audacity (free)...obviously, it depends on your inidividual audio clip (wav); there are some technical if´s and but´s (fine tunning your normalizing, let ´s say)
Good luck

[Richard_G]

Normalizing usually only brings the loud sections up to the max or a preset level. When doing that it increases the volume on all parts equally. So if the loud sections are too loud but the quiet sections too quiet, it will stay that way. The loud sections will be even louder still!

What you need to do is to add compression. This is where everythng below a certain level is increased in volume so that the differences between the level of the loud and quiet sections is reduced. It takes a bit of trial and error to get it right but is the way to do it. Radio stations apply quite a bit of compression to their audio output so that the quiet sections can still be heard. I use CoolEdit Pro (Audition before Adobe bought it) and can do it in that, whether any of the free editors can do it or not I don't know.

[Otterpup]

Thanks julitomg and Richard_G for your help.It certainly sounds like compression is what I need.I'll have to experiment a bit.Thanks again guys for being responsive!

[olyteddy]

Audacity has several compression filters too.