Of particular importance is cutting the 30Hz band quite deeply, so -8dB should do nicely. On the Equalizer tab, set the presets and sliders as shown in the images below. Setting the release (second) rate to 20dB/s will significantly even out the reproduction of the dialog band of the movie. In the AGC section, you will see the filter defaults to 100 and 50dB per second. To even out the average levels somewhat, you want a fast “attack” time and a fairly slow “release” time. On the System tab, you may need to adjust the attack and release times of the automated level controls (DRC and Auto Gain). Like the auto volume control, this function also automates so that the gain of lower-level sounds is automatically adjusted throughout the movie.
This will have the effect of boosting the quieter parts of the movie to almost twice normal loudness. On the Main tab, in the DRC (Dynamic Range Control) section, check the “Enable” box and set the left slider to about +8dB. Second, you need to set up a dynamic range control to boost the foley sounds to a certain degree. This will prevent uneven effects without altering your speaker setup. The auto gain function, as set, causes the audio levels to recover between loud sounds.Īlso on the Mixer tab, check the “Auto matrix” box and uncheck its sub-boxes. If you do not uncheck the one-pass option, you will notice that movie getting quieter and quieter with each successive loud sound. This automates the limiter so that your volume levels for high-level sounds remain more or less constant throughout the movie. On the Mixer tab, make sure you check the “Auto gain control” and uncheck the “One-pass norm” boxes. This will effectively increase the dialog and foley bands of the movie to be about three times as loud as normal, without increasing the levels of the effects band, which is driven into the limiters. On the Main tab of the setup dialog, set the Master / Gain control to about +12dB. The idea is to drive the overall sound level up to the point where the filter’s limiters are triggered by sounds in the effects band, thus limiting the difference in loudness between dialog and effects. The AC3Filter documentation does a poor job of explaining this, so I hope I can do better. Now, to fix our complaining neighbor problem.įirst, you will need to set up a volume limiter. Take note of the differences between effects (explosions, gunshots, etc.), dialog (people talking) and foley sounds (rustling paper, crickets, rainfall, etc.) and you will see the various audio bands in use. As the movie plays, you will see the level bars reflective of the various sound levels on each channel of your sound system, on the Mixer tab. These will need to be adjusted to your system requirements.Īt this point, if you’ve checked the box for “Show tray icon” on the System tab, you should be able to play a movie and watch the filter working by clicking on its icon. Other settings allow you to redirect sound to SPDI/F and HDMI outputs. You might as well set the filter to up-convert your files, which will often yield a noticeable improvement in sound quality. These should be set to match the capabilities of your sound card. Most cards today will support 48KHz 24-bit audio, and some will even go as high as 96KHz and 32-bit. Now, on the Main tab, set the upper-left corner to suit your sound card. move the sliders in your mixer applet), be sure you check the “Use Direct sound by default” box. If you don’t want it to disturb your system’s sound levels (eg.
Also, be sure to set the filter’s merit to “Prefer AC3Filter” to ensure it’s always activated. You want to check them all since they are all found in various movie files. On this dialog, and in the upper-left corner, you will find a list of sound formats to be processed by the AC3Filter. Once installed, open up the AC3Filter configuration dialog (from your Start > Programs menu) and click on the System tab.
To get started, you need to install the filter and do the basic setup.
You will need to set up a volume limiter, a dynamic range control and also adjust the equalizer.
You will need to do some experimenting and adjusting on three sections of the filter software to get a working solution.
The software to fix this problem is the AC3Filter (by Alexander Vigovsky) which can be downloaded for free and works on all Windows platforms.īut simply downloading and installing this software won’t fix your problem.