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Like editing video in xref:edit-videos-efficiently-with-screenflow9[Screenflow 9], I’ve not always edited audio in Audacity as efficiently nor as quickly as I could have. I don’t know whether I am just stubborn (my mother might say that I was) and, for the longest time, just stuck to the limited functionality that I knew, or didn’t want to learn. To be honest, I can’t say what it was.
Perhaps, because I’m not a trained audio engineer, I thought that it was too complex for me, or that I didn’t have the time to commit to learning enough about https://manual.audacityteam.org/index.html[Audacity] to use it efficiently.
Regardless, in recent months, as I’ve been working through https://www.pluralsight.com/authors/matthew-setter[two courses for Pluralsight], I’ve dedicated myself to learning as much as I can, and to improving as quickly as I can—on a regular basis.
Given that, I’m sharing some of that learning today, in the hopes that it helps you to link:/tags/audacity[edit with Audacity] more efficiently and effectively than you currently are.
== Reduce Mouth Noises and Breathing with the Amplify Effect
Let’s start off by reducing mouth noises, such as when your lips stick a little, after you’ve eaten something sweet, and reducing excessive breathing. I don’t know about you, but I find both of these distract from what’s being said, which is the essential part of a tech video. Have a listen to the two examples below, and let me know which one distracts you less.
// ... include audio samples.
While I’m encouraging you to reduce them, I’m not trying to remove them completely, because then the audio sounds unnatural. I’m just trying to find the right balance. For quite some time, I tried to do that, either by cutting out breathing completely or replacing it with generated silence, using menu:Generate[Silence...].
However, doing that, to me, gave the audio an unnatural quality. This is because we need to breathe, otherwise we can’t talk. So when it’s removed, there’s a certain unnatural quality about it.
However, if you reduce the amplitude of breathing and other mouth noises, you can retain a natural quality to your audio while letting your listener focus on the essential element — what you’re trying to teach them.
To do this, find an audio sample within your recorded audio, such as a breath, that you want to reduce, and select it, as in the screenshot above. Then, under menu:Effect[Amplify...] set "Amplification (dB):" to around "-6", and click btn:[OK]. This reduces the amplification of the selected audio by 6 decibels.
While I recommend a setting of -6 dB, it isn’t fixed value. Rather, it’s one that I’ve found to be the right level of amplitude for me. So, if it’s not right for you, then play around with it until you find the level that you feel best suits your ear (or audio reviewer).
Sadly, I don’t—yet—know of a way to automate this in Audacity throughout a complete audio track. I have tried to achieve the same effect by getting a noise profile of a breath and then using the Noise Reduction effect to remove them all. However, the result is that the audio sounds over-produced. Given that, for the time being, it’s currently a manual task.
However, even though it’s manual, it can result in a very polished recording. If you’d like to see it in action, check out a walk-through on my YouTube channel.
== Adjust Amplitude with the Envelope Tool
While the amplify effect is very precise, sometimes that level of precision can be limiting. This is because you often have to know exactly the amplitude level that you want to increase or decrease your track by. If you’re experimenting, then there’s a lot of repetitive menu and keyboard clicking required until you get it right. This isn’t the most efficient approach.
If you need something where you can continually adjust on the fly, until it’s just right, then skip the Amplify effect for Audacity’s Envelope Tool.
To quote https://manual.audacityteam.org/man/envelope_tool.html[the Audacity manual]:
[quote] In Audacity, every track has an "amplitude envelope" which is controlled with the Envelope Tool on the Tools Toolbar. An amplitude envelope just means that you can control a track's volume changes smoothly over time. People in the recording industry sometimes call this technique volume automation, because in a recording studio you would typically change the volume of tracks by moving volume sliders up and down, and fancy mixing boards had the ability to remember your movements and automate them from then on. Manipulating a track's amplitude envelope in Audacity is similar, except that Envelope Tool is used to create and manipulate "control points" at various points in the track. The control points then determine its volume changes over time.
To use it, click the Envelope Tool on the Tools Toolbar. You’ll see a bar appear at the top and bottom of the track, which is the track’s amplitude envelope. Then, as you move your mouse over the track, you’ll see that the mouse pointer has changed to an up and down pointing triangle, with space in-between.
Here’s how I use it. Click on the envelope marker, at the top of the track, to the left of the region where you want to adjust the amplitude. Then, click on the envelope marker where you want to to adjust the amplitude. Then repeat those two steps for the right side of the audio region to be adjusted.
What this will do is to limit the amplitude change to the region that you want to change as much as possible, without affecting the remainder of the track. Then, adjust the envelope markers and play the selected region until the amplitude is what you need it to be. When you’re finished, select another tool in the Tools Toolbar, and you’re done.
If you’d like to see it in action, check out a walk-through on my YouTube channel.
== Learn How to Do Effective Selection Editing
Another enhancement that I’ve started using more in Audacity recently is how I edit and remove selection of audio in my recordings. Specifically, if I want to remove a section of audio, I’ll select it, then check that it’s exactly what I want to remove by pressing kbd:[Space], which plays the selected region. If it’s not quite right, then I’ll increase or decrease the selection size, and delete it when it’s just right.
TIP: You can also click the down-facing green triangle at the left edge of the selection to play the selection too. However, if you click it further into the selection, the track will play from that point onward.
This is a vast improvement on what I used to do, which was:
. Select a section of one or more audio tracks . Cut it out . Test the audio around the spliced out section . If too much was cut out, then I’d undo the deletion of the selection and start over
Now, I just adjust and test the selection until it’s what should be removed. Far fewer mouse (trackpad) and keyboard clicks.
Another thing that I’ve been doing is using zoom with complete abandon. There’s no such thing as zooming in too far. Have a look at the two screenshots below. In the left one, you can see that I’ve virtually selected nothing at all. However, by zooming in, if I have a tiny chirp in the audio, I can then refine it until I only affect that artifact and nothing else.
The key point here is how efficient Audacity is at letting you adjust selection sizes. You don’t need to move the mouse to a particular point at the start or end of the selection, such as in Screenflow. When you’re at the left or right-hand side of the selection, the mouse pointer changes to a hand, and you can then click and drag to resize the selection.
So, just in case you weren’t aware you could, after you’ve selected a section of audio, if it’s not right, don’t select it again, just adjust the selection as needed.
If you’d like to see it in action, check out a walk-through on my YouTube channel.
== Conclusion