Any way to limit dynamic range of sound?

[TDog2112]

When turned up loud enough to hear speech, musical passages are way too loud. I'm wondering if there is any way to limit or compress the dynamic range of a movie when converting from AVI to MPG, or after. I usually use TMPGENC for encoding. Any ideas?

[TDog2112]

Bump.

[Anonymous65]

You can demux the AVI file so you get the audio as a wave file. Then use a program like Goldwave to alter the audio in any way you want. Next, remux the audio and video back together.

[TDog2112]

Ok, that's a start. Thank You!

Have you ever tried to do what I'm proposing? I assume I would use the "clip" function. Do you know of any starting points I might use to get good results?

[Harpreet]

Instead of using the "Clip" function, use "Compress" which is there in many programs such as Sound Forge or Wavelab.

[TDog2112]

Wouldn't that just make everything quieter? Does it affect the dynamic range?

[Freshman]

Harpreet is right: Dynamic compression is exactly what you need. Depending on the settings you use, quiet signals will be amplified whereas loud signals will be reduced in volume by a certain degree.

Personally, I don't use dynamic compression on my VCDs because I want to alter the sound as little as possible.

[dphirschler]

Compression is what you want. VHS tapes are compressed. You'll notice louder mid-range and less in the low and high ends. And it will just sound louder.

If you just want to reduce the bass or treble, then an EQ or band pass/stop filter might do it for you.

Goldwave will do what you want. It's shareware (and worth the $20-30) but it is full functioning without registering. It will, after several commands (50?), give an annoying reminder to register, but you could just restart Goldwave thus resetting the counter.

Darryl