Ventrilo - How to normalize output volume.

So, I found these instructions the other day after being in a group where one person was really, really loud, and another was almost too quiet to hear.

I tried it out last night on the raid and it worked beautifully. Every single person who talked last night was at almost exactly the same volume.

So I figured I'd better post these instructions here, considering how friggin awesome the end result was:

1- Go to setup in ventrilo.
2- On the top right side, check "use DirectSound" for the output device.
3- Click the SFX button.
4- Select the "Compressor" sfx item in the list and click the add button.
5- On the screen that pops up, set the options to the following (note, the number in the middle of the slider is the current setting):

Gain = Adjust for how loud you want people to be. (I use 15)
Attack = 0.01
Release = 200
Threshold = -30
Ratio = 100
Pre delay = 4.0

6- Select ok on each setup screen to save your changes.
7- All done.

Each person on vent should now be output at roughly the same volume.

If the volume is too quiet or too loud, the sliders on the main setup page will no longer modify the volume in a significant way, you'll need to go back into the SFX config and change the "gain" parameter as appropriate.

Thanks, Serengeti, those are great instructions.

Man, in music, compression is the devil, but it's sure useful for this application.

thanks! I was trying to find these the other night, but they were buried in the games/platform forum pretty good.

In my life, there's a lot of minor annoyances that I just deal with bcause either 1) I don't know how to fix them, or 2) the amount of effort tracking down how to fix it is just too much.

Baylie you just totally solved one of those annoyances that I have had for at least 2 years. having to randomly dial my master volume up and down depending on who was talking is now, hopefully, a thing of the past.

awesome, awesome post.

I've been doing this since it was posted in the main Games forum, and trust me: if you haven't done this to Vent yet, do it NOW. Makes a huge difference.

Thanks. I'll get a chance to test the out tonight on a group of very varied voice volumes (tried for 5 v's...)

Seth wrote:

In my life, there's a lot of minor annoyances that I just deal with bcause either 1) I don't know how to fix them, or 2) the amount of effort tracking down how to fix it is just too much.

Amen, brother. Thanks for posting those instructions Serengeti!

That's excellent. I will have to give that a shot, too! It sure beats what I have been doing (which is going through each individual to set volume and adjusting for being too quiet or too loud).

Thanks a ton, Vent has been a real bear for me to figure out how to config, i'll give this a try!

Malor wrote:

Man, in music, compression is the devil, but it's sure useful for this application.

Different kinds of compression. You're probably thinking of data compression, specifically lossy compression which discards portions of the original audio. This is dynamic range compression, which just alters the volume levels of an audio signal.

IMAGE(http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/7/73/The_More_You_Know.jpg)

Actually, muttonchop, I used the word correctly. Most modern music is compressed into the upper 10% of the volume range, and very frequently driven past clipping. Fire up a wav editor on almost any CD sold in the last ten years and you'll see it. People like it, because it makes music sound louder, but it destroys dynamic range.

They couldn't do that sh*t on records; if they'd tried, the needles would have jumped right out of the tracks.

You're right that MP3 compression and dynamic compression are different, but I was using the correct sense of the word.

Also, why classical albums require you to alternatively turn your radio up to 60 and down to 10. Because they actually have dynamic content and are (for the most part) not compressed.

Serengeti wrote:

Each person on vent should now be output at roughly the same volume.

You're my new hero! You should get a cookie.

Malor wrote:

Actually, muttonchop, I used the word correctly...

So much for trying to sound smart

Malor wrote:

Actually, muttonchop, I used the word correctly. Most modern music is compressed into the upper 10% of the volume range, and very frequently driven past clipping. Fire up a wav editor on almost any CD sold in the last ten years and you'll see it. People like it, because it makes music sound louder, but it destroys dynamic range.

They couldn't do that sh*t on records; if they'd tried, the needles would have jumped right out of the tracks.

You're right that MP3 compression and dynamic compression are different, but I was using the correct sense of the word.

The Loudness War!

stauf7 wrote:
Malor wrote:

Actually, muttonchop, I used the word correctly. Most modern music is compressed into the upper 10% of the volume range, and very frequently driven past clipping. Fire up a wav editor on almost any CD sold in the last ten years and you'll see it. People like it, because it makes music sound louder, but it destroys dynamic range.

They couldn't do that sh*t on records; if they'd tried, the needles would have jumped right out of the tracks.

You're right that MP3 compression and dynamic compression are different, but I was using the correct sense of the word.

The Loudness War!

That is really interesting. I'd never heard of it. Thanks for the link!