GigaVox Media has introduced a new free tool for enhancing podcast audio files prior to posting them online.

The Levelator is a Java application that automatically adjusts the audio levels within your podcast, compressing and normalizing the file to provide more even sound levels. The tool is designed to take audio files and even out the overall volume, and then adjust the volume so that the loudest parts of the audio file are at a standard level.

The Levelator complements popular podcasting tools like Garageband that let you create polished podcasts, but don’t have the control over audio levels to create optimal Internet audio.

The Levelator is designed to work with any WAV and AIFF file, mono or stereo, at any sample rate. It’s intended to be used before you compress files, so it doesn’t work with MP3s.

The user interface is designed to be a no-brainer. Drag-and-drop any WAV or AIFF file onto The Levelelator’s application window, and it will create a new version with optimized levels.

The Levelator is in beta and doesn’t have any documentation. It’s easy to use, though, and the biggest problem you’re likely to have is trying to use it on .MP3 files by mistake.

System Requirements

Windows 2000, XP or Vista

• Java Runtime Environment (JRE) Version 5.0 required! (Download)
• Help for Windows users

Macintosh OS X 10.4 (Tiger) — PowerPC or Intel CPU

• Earlier versions such as 10.3 (Panther) are not supported.
• Help for OS X users

Linux is not supported at this time.