I need to expand 'dead air'

[christineavatar]

I have a narration where the performer spoke a little too quickly. I need to insert a 'beat' in between one phrase and another. How can I do that?

[MikeHarrison · Accepted solution]

Place the cursor at the location you'd like to edit.

From the Edit menu select Insert>Silence...

In the dialog box that comes up, enter the value (length of time) to insert and click OK.

A "beat" could be anywhere from several frames to a full second (or more). You'll have to make that determination.

[SteveG_AudioMasters_]

Ideally, the 'silence' you insert should be room tone from the recording. Anything else is going to stand out like a sore thumb.

[MikeHarrison]

Agreed. I should've said.

[christineavatar]

Thank you very much. I just inserted 3/10ths of a second into the file and it worked out beautifully. But I am curious, how do you insert a room tone?

[ryclark]

Hopefully when you did your recording there was some quiet time (usually just before or after) when the performer isn't speaking. It is that 'silent' part that you can use to fill in the gaps since it contains some low level residual noise from within the space in which you were recording. That is 'room tone' or what the room sounds like when nothing is happening. It is much better to use that than absolute digital silence.

So to insert 'room tone' you just select a bit of this quiet room background, copy it and insert it into where you want the gap to be extended.