Sound Mixing for Game Commentary?

Let me correct that, you can put an audio compressor on the commentary which will basically bring the loudest and quietest peaks in your audio file closer to each other, and afterwards you will bring the gain up a bit again resulting in an overall much louder audio file. Think about how they do that with radio, they compress the sh*t out of all the music.
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That's good advice, and I'll take it one step further: you can automate this with what's known as sidechain compression. It's a trick used in music quite a bit, in which the volume of one channel is reduced depending on the volume of another channel. In music you're probably familiar with it from dance/trance music, in which the kick drum momentarily lowers the music's volume whenever it enters; this generates a "pumping" effect. In video, you can use your narration track as the "source", which will then lower the "target" track (the game audio) whenever it crosses a certain threshold.
It's a fairly advanced technique, so it'll take some reading up on, but it can be pulled off in Audacity, which is free. Just google "Audacity sidechain compression" (I can't put video links here ironically ... ). You'll get some good results.
 
Assaf said:
That's good advice, and I'll take it one step further: you can automate this with what's known as sidechain compression. It's a trick used in music quite a bit, in which the volume of one channel is reduced depending on the volume of another channel. In music you're probably familiar with it from dance/trance music, in which the kick drum momentarily lowers the music's volume whenever it enters; this generates a "pumping" effect. In video, you can use your narration track as the "source", which will then lower the "target" track (the game audio) whenever it crosses a certain threshold.
It's a fairly advanced technique, so it'll take some reading up on, but it can be pulled off in Audacity, which is free. Just google "Audacity sidechain compression" (I can't put video links here ironically ... ). You'll get some good results.
Click to expand...


I did exactly this: sidechaining the compressor and it's great. My audio is far from perfect but it's definitely better than when I started this thread--Or at least audible now. I think if I had a treated recording environment, I could make the audio awesome but in my current environment, compressing too much makes the background noise (and hissing) to become more noticeable. Generally, though, I think I'm happy with it. Check out my latest video and let me know what you guys think!
 
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