I've been asked if I level the audio before or after editing.
I always run audio through a normalizing, compression and leveling process BEFORE editing.
My reason for this is so I don't have to go through the project a second time if the process increases the volume of breaths between sentences.
I always use Levelator, a free and easy program for Mac that does a great job leveling .wav and .aiff files FAST. There are other programs, like Auphonic, but Levelator ain't broke so I'll keep using it.
Split the tracks before leveling
There is one step I take prior to running files through Levelator: *Split the tracks.
*In Audacity: Click the little triangle in the Track Control Panel and select Split Stereo to Mono. This will cause each Left and Right channel to become their own track.
Some of my clients send me their files with one person on the left channel and another on the right. Before I run the file through a leveling process I need to split the tracks.
Watch this video to find out WHY IT'S IMPORTANT TO DO IT IN THIS ORDER.
UPDATE: Levelator does not work on Mac OS Catalina or newer
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