Ventrilo normalization

Off With My Head!
Donator V5.0
LiquidMantis's picture
Location: Rocky Mtn. Foothills

I'm lifting this verbatim from my Warhammer guild's forum:

Ghrock wrote:

Vent Normalization makes everyone's voice the exact same volume. In essence, you won't blow your ears out or have difficulty hearing people.

Here's how:
Go to Setup
Enable Direct Sound
Select the SFX Button
Select Compressor and click Add.
Under Compressor Properties use the following settings
Gain = Adjust for how loud you want people to be. (Try 15)
Attack = 0.01
Release = Around 500
Threshold = Around -30
Ratio = 100
Pre delay = 4.0

What the settings do:

Gain: How much volume you feed into the compressor. Not really relevant unless everyone is too quiet, then you can turn this up a little; turning it up too much will sound EXTREMELY bad.

Attack: How fast volume change will happen. Example: setting this to 500 means that anything coming in will only be dropped in volume after a half a second. For vent this should be set as low as possible.

Release: How fast the compressor stops changing things. Not really that relevant with vent, setting it around 500 is good for voice material.

Threshold: This sets the point where we actually start changing what’s coming in. Whereas 0 is the absolute loudest you can have for an input, -60 is super quiet. Average users will probably come in somewhere around -25 to -15, with the occasional few being really quiet, which is why I have this set so low.

Ratio: How much any sound below the set threshold gets compressed and/or modified in the volume department. If you still want to hear SOME volume variation then set this lower (2-4). The higher you set it the closer in volume everyone will be.

Pre delay: Mostly just deals with processing; with computer and digital processors they can look ahead a few milliseconds to see what needs to be dropped in volume or changed before it actually comes through the speakers. Highest is ideal.

So far this has made a world of difference for me.

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Fond memories of a flexible Grandma ensue. - m0nk3yboy

Crocket Man
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Datyedyeguy's picture

Thanks for the info. I was always sick of adjusting each person's volume seperately.

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Cabbot Patch Kid
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Thin_J's picture
Location: Riding my invisible bike.

Datyedyeguy wrote:
Thanks for the info. I was always sick of adjusting each person's volume seperately.

Same here. Now if only this worked for the in-game voice stuff people seem so crazily fond of using these days

People's switch to the in-game voice on source engine games in particular is annoying.

Ventrilo does it all so much better.

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Junior Executive
Tetnis's picture
Location: Approaching parenthood - june 5th

Thank you very much! No more adjusting everyones volume.

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Bilge Cat
Donator V2.0
Farscry's picture
Location: Commanding at the Helm

Wow... that is AWESOME!

Also, Liquid, last night you had an imposter taking your name on the Vent server and apparently spamming people with soundbytes lifted from "Saw".

"We are at our best when we work together. We are at our worst when we expend valuable and finite energy and resources destroying one another." - Paleocon, regarding humanity.

Off With My Head!
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LiquidMantis's picture
Location: Rocky Mtn. Foothills

Yeah, he played with us in the D&D channel for a while impersonating different people. I swear it wasn't me!

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Web
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Fond memories of a flexible Grandma ensue. - m0nk3yboy

Not Without Incident
Donator V6.0
Quintin_Stone's picture
Location: Cary, NC

I'll have to try this. 2142 nights can get tricky.

Certis wrote:

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Fedaykin98 wrote:
Good lord, I wouldn't have expected brilliance like that from that nemeslut Quintin Stone!

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Indecisive
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Funkenpants's picture
Location: Generic suburb

How do you manually change someone's volume?

Not Without Incident
Donator V6.0
Quintin_Stone's picture
Location: Cary, NC

Funkenpants wrote:
How do you manually change someone's volume?

You can apply filters to individuals, and one of the filters is a volume modifier. I used to have to do this (50% volume) to Indignant when he was so much louder than everyone else on the channel.

Certis wrote:

Quintin is both smart and attractive.

Fedaykin98 wrote:
Good lord, I wouldn't have expected brilliance like that from that nemeslut Quintin Stone!

<+katisu> Q-Stone is an internet genius

She's My Cherry Π
Donator V4.0
Hypatian's picture
Location: Die Unternet

Just as a note: Mac ventrilo users can't use this, which can make it a pain at times. If everybody works to make their volume reasonably normal for the comfort of other users, the Mac user is happy. If everybody just does whatever and assumes vent normalization will fix it, the Mac user is sad. So if you regularly vent it up with mac folks, be warned.

That said, this trick is really damned handy.

Drawing on the Cave Wall
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cartoonin99's picture
Location: Logan, UT

Crap on a stick!

Sticky this post haste.

Quintin_Stone wrote:

Lunabean, when are you going to grow up and stop playing video games?
lunabean wrote:
After I have sex with your mother.

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Off With My Head!
Donator V5.0
LiquidMantis's picture
Location: Rocky Mtn. Foothills

Funkenpants wrote:
How do you manually change someone's volume?

It's under Special Effects on the user. It's a major pain doing it per user though, plus their setup might change too.

Xbox | PSN: LiquidmantisGWJ
Web
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Fond memories of a flexible Grandma ensue. - m0nk3yboy

Texas Teabagger
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TheWalt's picture
Location: This side of nowhere...

cartoonin99 wrote:
Crap on a stick!

Sticky this post haste.

I added it to the Ventrilo post which is sticky... does that count?

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