AGC complicates the editing process. Your recorded audio may be loud and noisy for one scene and squashed in another. As you're editing, the task is to even out the variances to create a consistent performance. Your first reaction may be to normalize all the clips, but that's not always helpful. In fact, normalizing may exaggerate the volume differences. While it's more time-consuming, the manual approach is usually a better solution. With your edits on the timeline, listen through the project and make notes on which clips sound out of place. Most NLEs allow you to adjust the overall volume of individual clips, and that's a good place to start. But once you've balanced the speaking volume, you will likely notice a jump in background noise between adjacent clips. To minimize - or at least smooth - these abrupt changes, add some volume handles to the clips to gently fade up or down. This is especially helpful at the edit points. You can enhance the effect by crossfading audio clips. Try overlapping the end of one clip with the beginning of the next one. The fades ease out of the first clip and into the second. It takes some tweaking, but this technique can salvage some of the damage caused by AGC.

You may also find that clips change volume from beginning to end. By placing keyframes around the volume changes, you can minimize the effect and smooth the performance volume. Play through the troublesome clip and note where the audio changes volume. Placing keyframes at those points, you can gently raise or lower the audio volume for the necessary time, then ease back to the original level. It's tweaky and time-consuming, but these techniques can salvage the audio from most AGC recordings.

Camcorder manufacturers don't seem to fully realize how we push the envelope with their creations. But, with a little planning, care and edit time, we can create professional productions with devices that were never meant for much more than vacation video. Ideally, all camcorders would have manual audio controls, but, until that day comes, we can work around the AGC circuit as needed to get the job done. AGC is an evil conspiracy! Videographers unite!

Contributing Editor Hal Robertson is a digital media producer and technology consultant.

AGC can be useful, as long as fidelity and professionalism aren't your primary concerns. Let's say you're shooting a board meeting or roundtable discussion. You've placed microphones in the best possible locations, but nobody speaks at the same volume and heads turn in every direction. In this situation, AGC can be useful - raising the volume of the soft speakers and keeping a handle on the laughter or applause. Sure, there will be background noise and nasty volume changes, but you'll hear everything. For these types of video documents, audio expectations are a little lower, and AGC might actually help.