sound removal in "silent" areas

[DavidSweeneyBear]

Hi all, following on from a previous thread (Re: Editing - faster selection of audio segments ) ...

Now that i am able to isolate areas of speech from "silent" areas using markers, i'm wondering if there is a way to apply the "sound removal" process to JUST the areas defined as silent, i.e. the areas outside the markers?

if you look closely at the "silent" area in the screenshot, you will see a slight blip around 15:01.2

I'm producing audiobooks and have an annoying, involuntary "flap" sound that my throat makes from time to time before taking a breath. It only registers about -43.5db, but still, i'd like to be able to clean it up! I have captured the sound and can remove it very effectively if i only apply the process to the silent area, but if i apply it to the whole file it totally destroys the main audio of my voice.

I want to be able to apply the process to the whole file in one go. At the moment, i'm taking them out manually as i go and it's fiddly and time-consuming.

Any ideas? Cheers

[SteveG_AudioMasters_]

You can effectively invert the selection (if you're careful) by using the 'delete silence' setting in Diagnostics, but I'm not sure how you could apply an effect just to the marked areas. If you click once on each marked area in the list, it will highlight it without deleting it, and if you have a favorite set to implement your Sound Removal setting, you could do this reasonably efficiently, but not as a batch process. I can't think of an easy way to do this other than that, though.

[DavidSweeneyBear]

Thanks Steve, I can't use the delete silence without deleting all the silence... which makes it sound like i had way too much coffee!

I'm pretty sure a noise gate plugin would do the job if set right, but audition CC 2015 doesn't have a dedicated one as far as i know. I also can't seem to find any freebie ones that work in audition. i've downloaded a couple but they don't show up in audition when i scan the plugins folder, even though my other plugins do (ozone 8).

[SteveG_AudioMasters_ · Accepted solution]

DavidSweeneyBear  wrote

Thanks Steve, I can't use the delete silence without deleting all the silence... which makes it sound like i had way too much coffee!

That's why I said click once - not on the area where the check is either. Doing that just highlights the range of the silence without actually deleting it. Then you apply your favorite by keystroke, and move onto the next one. If you are careful about how you click, your silence remains!

I'm pretty sure a noise gate plugin would do the job if set right, but audition CC 2015 doesn't have a dedicated one as far as i know. I also can't seem to find any freebie ones that work in audition. i've downloaded a couple but they don't show up in audition when i scan the plugins folder, even though my other plugins do (ozone 8).

You set it up in Dynamics Processing; there are a couple of presets to get you started, but it's going to make your noise floor jump up and down, so not really a good idea unless you can effectively replace the ambience. That's possible, but requires a bit of careful planning. FYI, later versions of Audition have a 'Dynamics' effect which has separate sections for auto-gating, compression and downward expansion, which is the other thing you could try, and you can set this up in your version in Dynamics Processing quite easily - look at the compander preset for a starting point. Be warned - it will still pump the noise floor unless you are extremely lucky.

[DavidSweeneyBear]

That's brilliant Steve, thanks again - now that i know how to use it properly, the delete silence works well. Having set the thresholds correctly, I'm able to skip through the silences, occasionally using ctrl+I if the selection is slightly overhanging the actual speech waveform, and then simply use a keyboard shortcut to clear audio if there are any unwanted noises. Another way to speed up my editing process, great!