The weather remained unchanged, so I was able to finish re-recording the messed-up lines in Chapter 6 of the Trang audiobook.

And then I compressed it. Have I ever explained dynamic range compression? No, I have not, and that's because I'm not entirely sure what it is. Here's the Wikipedia article--it's full of terms like "side-chaining" and "attack and release" and "flux capacitator," so maybe you can understand it, but I can't. I just set my compression tool to what ACX tells me to and let 'er rip.

My guess from working with it is that dynamic range compression basically does what it says: If you imagine a range of sounds from very quiet ones to really loud ones, compression adjusts all those sounds so that they're all at medium level of loudness. That's helpful in getting rid of clipping and fixing any places where your voice gets timid. It also just generally helps keep the volume constant, so that nothing's inaudible but nobody's ears get blown out.

Compression is less helpful with breath sounds, which it makes louder. That's why you always do your compression before you do your noise removal.