Shorten Silence Between Talkers in Multitrack

[bryanc31400415]

Is there an easy way to shorten the silence between when someone stops talking and the other person starts talking in multitrack? Sometimes in the recordings there is a big delay due to streaming issues, so there can be a few seconds between talking. I would love to run something that would shorten the silence so the conversation is more smooth!

[ryclark]

Yes there is a feature in Audition for doing that but it may take a little bit of setting to get the correct results. You find it in the Diagnostics panel which can be activated, if not already, from the Windows menu. Once open select Delete Silence from the drop down Effect box. There are some Presets available for you to try but you may still have to tweak these for your material. At the bottom of the Diagnostics pane there is a box to select the type of Fix, either Deleting Silence or Shortening Silence. The second option is by far the best as you can choose the amount of gap to leave, no gap would sound very unnatural.

[bankyj60767557]

What settings do you like here?  I'm having trouble finding that sweet spot

[Trevor_Asq]

ProTools (and LogicProX, apparently) has 'strip silence' which can lift out the sections that are below the threshold - so you could step through and tighten up the conversation. Theres a feature request you can vote on.

I don't think, from my very limited understanding of it, that the Audition 'remove silence' option will do you many favours. It's destructive & you can't set different thresholds for individual tracks.

Presumably you'd have to deal with the tracks in an interleaved format, or as a mixdown, as if you deal with them as individual tracks then you will lose the relationship between them.

You are stuck with doing it manually, although the pull up should be fairly consistent so you may be able to speed it up with a macro.

[Trevor_Asq]

Audacity has 'truncate silence' which is also destructive but is an alternative.

It also has 'silence finder' which will add tracks to mark where silences end. Which could be a help in locating edit points for pull-ups.

[ryclark]

Audition's Delete Silence is fully configurable in defining what is silence and what is wanted audio. But, admittedly it is only available in the Waveform edit view which is destructive but can be undone and redone if settings aren't quite right before you save the file. But usually you would be working on a copy of the file wouldn't you, not the original. Also you have to Scan the file first which shows you a list of selected silences so that you can choose which to delete or not. And the list can be converted into Markers if you need to go through manually to check each one and these Markers will show up on the file when inserted onto a track in a Multitrack session to help with the edit.

The Diagnostics panel also has the opposite effect of Mark Audio which allow you to lift out complete clips of wanted audio.

All the above features of Audition answer the OP's request for shortening gaps between speech in interview situations without having to use any other software but Audition. But, as you say, at the moment it is only a destructive process in the Waveform view and doesn't work in a Multitrack session. So you could put in a Feature request for a Multitrack Delete Silence option. However as an experienced user I find that it is almost as quick to just go through manually and nip out the unwanted gaps.

[Trevor_Asq]

ryclark  wrote

these Markers will show up on the file when inserted onto a track in a Multitrack session to help with the edit.

The Diagnostics panel also has the opposite effect of Mark Audio which allow you to lift out complete clips of wanted audio.

Useful, thanks.

I can 'mark audio' from the Multitrack and see the markers. Can't see them in the 'marker' window or navigate between them or snap to them - am I missing something?

[MTM_TSG]

Actually there is a way i found you could delete silence in the multitrack without it been destructive (you still maintain the same timeline without it shrinking) 

Steps

1 In the waveform not multitrack, under the diagnostics panel mark audio of the files (make sure the marked     audios are the desired.

2 Then move to the markers panel and highlight all and right click then click the option that says export selected markers to csv, this takes you to the save as so note the location its been saved, ensure its saved as .csv format it can be opened in excel or notepad but not neccesary here.

3 Now go into multitrack where you have the desired wave form yet to be strip silenced

4 On the markers panel you have it empty unlike the waveform marker panel, all you have to do is import          markers from file from right clicking the empty space 

5 Then you browse the location of the previously saved .csv file, immediately your multitrack is marked asit      was marked in the waveform window

6 Then right click the timeline multitrack ensure you have enabled snapping and snap to markers 

7 Then go ahead and use the razor to manually split the silence regions in between the marked audio which        makes trimming audio either to snap to the marker on the left or the right

I hope this was helpful!

[Peaceful_Walrus5C4A]

Nice workaround! In step 7, can you razor cut and delete all those points at once? Or do you have to go to each marker, razor cut there, and then delete?

[MTM_TSG]

Well you would have to razor cut all manually and select all the cut clips to delete all at once

[bryanc31400415 · Accepted solution]

Thanks everyone for the ideas to work with. I am thinking it will be easier to either:

A) continue to remove the gaps manually

B) export the entire file, then pull it back in and try the "delete silence"

Right now I am probably going to go with option A for now, but might test out B a couple times to see how well it works.

Thanks!

[ryclark]

It often turns out that option A) is the best. Although at first it may appear to be a tedious task by the time you have done a lot of research to find if there is an automatic way and then, if there is, got the settings correct for your particular audio you could have just as well spent the time doing it manually in the first place. Once you have done a few silence removals and got the knack all the rest will probably end up being done in super quick time. Also the results will probably sound better since a little bit of humanisation by not doing each one exactly the same will have enhanced the end result.

[_durin_]

Audition has offered a native "Strip Silence" feature in Multitrack since earlier this year.  It doesn't shorten the duration of the gaps, but it removes the empty portions of each participants clips and makes it simple to use the "Select all clips forward" and bring them back so you have full control over the timing adjustments.

[Peaceful_Walrus5C4A]

Hey Durn! I'm not familiar with the 'Select all clips forward' tool. Are you saying once you strip the silence, you can then use the 'select all clips forward' tool to move all clips closer together simultaneously, essentially shortening the gaps between words? 

[_durin_]

There are a few ways to go here.  If you position your playhead in a gap you want to reduce, you can right click the gap, or look under Edit > Select > Clips to End of Session and all clips at the playhead forward will be selected.  Then drag them back or use the Nudge shortcuts to move them back in small increments.  You could also use the Ripple Delete commands, also under the right-click track or Edit menu, entirely remove the gap, or make a time selection and use the Ripple Delete Time Selection command to just remove a little bit and shorten the overall gap.  All of these commands can be assigned shortcut keys if they don’t already have a default assigned, and very quickly tapped out while editing to shuffle forward clips back and tighten up those pauses.