DeEsser & DeClicker Plug-ins For Audacity

Steve · Post by **Steve** » July 12th, 2014, 1:31 am

Following on from the question raised a couple of days ago by wtomcho regarding de-essing of recordings, I came across a couple of relevant plug-ins that have recently been developed for Audacity.

The following link gives a full explanation for the use of the two plug-ins and can be found at:

http://forum.audacityteam.org/viewtopic.php?f=42&t=79278

Once downloaded, they need to be copied into your Audacity Plug-Ins folder - which for Windows users will be found either in:
Program Files(x86)\Audacity\Plug-Ins or Program Files\Audacity\Plug-Ins - These then will show up as options in the Effect Menu of Audacity.

I have tried these on a couple of recent recordings and it looks like that they might well work for me.

So far, I have only used them with the default settings but it would be useful to hear back from from anyone else that tries a different setup.

Steve

RuthieG · Post by **RuthieG** » July 12th, 2014, 2:29 am

The DeClicker appears to me to be nothing short of miraculous. I have just tried it with a sensitivity setting of 5dB, all other default settings unchanged. No other cleaning or anything else has been done to this.

https://librivox.org/uploads/xx-nonproject/declicker_rg.mp3

ETA The second one is the treated one.

It did take an age to process, but who cares?

Ruth

YouTube · Post by **Darvinia** » July 12th, 2014, 3:57 pm

Oh wow! Ruth, I see spikes in your first at .301, .779, 2.814, and the 't' in "to his music.." and they're just gone in the second! These are the things I spend ages editing out too. I must try this.

Thanks Steve!

ETA: A closer examination revealed two noises in the end of the word "creation". (1.876 and 1.943) I didn't really hear them until I was listening for them, (because I make the same noises) and then zoomed in to look. Again, those irregular wave forms in the second version are just gone!

barbara2 · Post by **barbara2** » July 13th, 2014, 12:37 am

Thankyou, I am dying to try these plug-ins. I have a newly recorded file that is badly in need of their attention.

The plug-ins are listed on the site linked to as "DeClicker.ny" and "DeEsser.ny" but, when downloaded, they each have a .bin extension - "DeClicker.bin" and "DeEsser.bin" and, though I have copied them into ~.audacity-files/plug-ins and even into /usr/share/audacity/plug-ins they do not appear in the Audacity Effects menu with the other nyquist effects I have put into those directories in the past. I tried opening the .bin files in a text editor and saving them with the .ny extension but still got no entries in the Effects menu.

It must be pretty clear by now that I am not a programmer! What have I done wrong?

Best,

Barbara

RuthieG · Post by **RuthieG** » July 13th, 2014, 1:42 am

Ooh. Mine actually downloaded themselves neatly straight into C:\Program Files (x86)\Audacity\PlugIns which I thought was rather clever of them. I right-clicked the link and "Save Link as". Depending on which browser you use, it may say "Save Target as" or some such. How did you download them, Barbara? And what operating system do you have? (I use Windows 7 and Firefox 29.)

Ruth

barbara2 · Post by **barbara2** » July 13th, 2014, 2:42 am

RuthieG wrote:And what operating system do you have? (I use Windows 7 and Firefox 29.)

Ruth

Oh dear. Looks like it is my OS (Linux). Those Nyquist plug-ins could have been re-packaged as Windows binaries?

Audacity is opensource and I think Nyquist is also. Plus I read the Audacity Wiki as saying "Nyquist plug-ins are simple text files ending with the filename extension ".ny"." The downloads advertised themselves as DeClicker.ny and DeEsser.ny so I thought they must somehow work with Linux, as all previous .ny files have.

Thank you for inspiring me to read the Wiki again. What it actually said was "Most Nyquist plug-ins are simple text files ending with the filename extension ".ny".

I'm not really sure about all this or if I could edit the plug-ins to get rid of the OS specific part of them?

Out of my depth,

Barbara

RuthieG · Post by **RuthieG** » July 13th, 2014, 3:06 am

I have never even dipped my toe into the water with Linux, let alone gone far enough to drown

. But Darvinia may be able to help - she is a Linux user.

Ruth

gypsygirl · Post by **gypsygirl** » July 13th, 2014, 5:12 am

barbara2 wrote:Audacity is opensource and I think Nyquist is also. Plus I read the Audacity Wiki as saying "Nyquist plug-ins are simple text files ending with the filename extension ".ny"." The downloads advertised themselves as DeClicker.ny and DeEsser.ny so I thought they must somehow work with Linux, as all previous .ny files have.

I just checked and they are, in fact, text files, so try this: I've made a copy of the two files and added a .txt extension to the end of the filenames. See if it works to download them and then remove the .txt. They're here:
DeClicker
DeEsser

Steve · Post by **Steve** » July 13th, 2014, 7:18 am

barbara2 wrote:
Oh dear. Looks like it is my OS (Linux). Those Nyquist plug-ins could have been re-packaged as Windows binaries?

Barbara

Hi Barbara

I have just checked this on a LinuxMint based system and the two plug-ins downloaded as .ny files.

Once installed, they were shown as options in the Effect Menu; I have tested them & they run fine under linux.

I did the same as Ruth suggested above and right-clicked on each plug-in and chose the "Save Link As" option. I then copied them from my Downloads folder to my /usr/share/audacity/plug-ins folder. Initially, I did have an issue pasting these files due to a permission restriction - if you get a similar problem, then let me know & I should be able to help you out.

Alternatively, try downloading & renaming the two plugins that Karen has uploaded to see if you can get them installed that way.

Let us know how you get on.

Steve

RuthieG · Post by **RuthieG** » July 13th, 2014, 7:30 am

In the matter of using the DeClicker, I did notice that some of my consonants suffered a bit. Hence, I am going to use it, but only after doing my editing, and probably not the whole file, but only troublesome bits of it.

Ruth

YouTube · Post by **Darvinia** » July 13th, 2014, 9:30 am

Barbara,

I use Ubuntu and I have no problem with those plug-ins. Steve's advice is the same as what I've done. Just confirming that it works on another Linux.

barbara2 · Post by **barbara2** » July 13th, 2014, 2:47 pm

Thank you for all the help. I tried everything suggested. The trouble could lie in my installation of openSUSE or with the latest openSUSE (Packman) update of Audacity.

BTW, when I changed from Chromium to Firefox, the files downloaded as .ny, rather than thinking that they were binaries, but Audacity still doesn't show them under Effects.

I will run DeEsser and DeClicker in a Windows virtual machine for the time being.

Best,

Barbara

YouTube · Post by **Darvinia** » July 13th, 2014, 11:40 pm

One more thing to try. I have some plug-ins in a folder:
/home/bjs/.audacity-files/plug-ins

You could try creating this folder if it doesn't exist and copying the .ny files into it. I did it with these two and they show up. Folders with a dot are usually hidden so remember to check "Show hidden " in your file manager and replace my 'bjs' with your computer username.

barbara2 · Post by **barbara2** » July 14th, 2014, 3:13 am

Darvinia wrote:One more thing to try. I have some plug-ins in a folder:
/home/bjs/.audacity-files/plug-ins

You could try creating this folder if it doesn't exist and copying the .ny files into it. I did it with these two and they show up. Folders with a dot are usually hidden so remember to check "Show hidden " in your file manager and replace my 'bjs' with your computer username.

Thank you Darvinia and everybody who helped. That was actually where I liked to put any plug-ins. BTW, I seem to have confused two problems. (Boring explanation in case it helps somebody else):

1. The Chromium web browser downloaded the .ny files as .bin files. They were able to be saved as .ny files (with some kind help from this forum).

2. When I finally worked out that I had lost "ownership" of the /home/barbara/.audacity-files⁄plug-ins/ directory (how?) I deleted it, made a new directory and re-installed Audacity just to be on the safe side. At last, I can use De-Esser and De-Clicker. A perfect end to a horrible day.

Steve, your advice to put the plug-ins in /usr/share/audacity worked too but I wanted them to have a permanent home.

Best,

Barbara

RuthieG · Post by **RuthieG** » July 14th, 2014, 4:20 am

Good, I am glad you have them installed now, Barbara.

I have not tried the De-Esser, but when I have I will endeavour to put a page on the Wiki about these plug-ins (and also the ReplayGain plug-in).

As I mentioned earlier, I do have some reservations about the De-Clicker. It definitely causes some deterioration in the sound quality so should be used with caution, in my opinion.

Ruth