Mixing a Loud Projecting Voice with a Very Quiet Voice

At times it can be quite tricky to balance a loud projecting voice with a very quiet voice. And mixing the two to make them equally audible and intelligible to listeners is very important.

Here’s the main problem that often arises during this process: When you make the quiet voice as loud as the loud projecting voice, the quiet voice sounds MUCH too loud. But in reality that level is what’s needed to provide a good listening experience to the listeners in interview podcasts and radio.

It’s a psychological phenomena really, because in real life when someone is yelling and another person is whispering, that disparity sounds natural when you’re in the room with those two people – the louder voice is loud and the quiet voice is quiet. But when producing audio for playback in a multitude of listening situations, these drastically different levels must be made equal, more or less, in order to make every word of both participants audible to the listener.

Of course in narrative/dramatized audio productions you may want some of the audio to be drastically louder/quieter than other audio for the sake of emotional impact. But always be aware that anyone listening in a loud environment will have great difficulty following and understanding the “story” because much of the audio may not be audible because it’s below the noise floor.

Want to receive the Daily Goody in your email, daily or weekly? Subscribe free here.

And please keep in mind, the Daily Goody is only a tiny little tip, fact or lesson everyday. Please don’t expect any of these posts to be long, earth-shattering masterpieces that instantly answer every single question you can think of and completely transform you into a world class podcast engineer. “Little by little, a little becomes a lot.”

.