ERA Voice Leveler $295/$594

A new addition to both of their audio restoration ERA Bundles (Standard and Pro), Accusonus’ Voice Leveler is a ‘oneknob’ plugin that flattens volume inconsistencies in any recorded vocal, alleviating the need for time-consuming gain automation. The Processing knob sets the target level, towards which the signal is ‘ridden’ through a combination of normalisation and dynamics shaping, the latter including control of breath sounds and nd regulation of the noise floor. For a less transparent effect, Tight ght mode yields a more ‘radio’ kind of sound, while the Emphasis function does a great job of fixing frequency issues due to poor mic technique. The waveform at the bottom shows the processing as an orange Output waveform overlaid on the black input.

Voice Leveler is intended for dialogue/voiceover work, but it works well on sung vocals too. If your singer is introducing enough tonal variance to warrant engaging Emphasis, however, re-recording would be better. Not necessarily a music production plugin, then, but one that fully lives up to its promise of keeping spoken word on the straight and narrow.

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