What are your must-have Audacity plugins/tools?

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NicoleJLeBoeuf
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Post by NicoleJLeBoeuf »

GrayHouse wrote: February 2nd, 2023, 6:38 am
NicoleJLeBoeuf wrote: February 2nd, 2023, 1:09 am I wound up doing the Normalize style ReplayGain after all, and then using Clip Fix with the lightest touch possible to the problem areas, so as to eliminate the clipping without reducing the volume of those phrases more than necessary, and the result isn't all that bad, but - wow. I will know better going forward!
You may understand this already but it's worth mentioning for others:

If you over-amplify (by whatever means) and it causes clipping, the clipped audio is still preserved above the clipping line - you just can't see the tops of the peaks anymore. In fact you can zoom out on your vertical scale to show a range greater than -1 to +1. So you can perfectly restore the clipped audio by simply deamplifying the clipped peaks. In that situation I often just select the syllable(s) or phrase around the clipped peak (remember to adjust to a zero crossing) and then deamplify by a few dB. I have macros for Amplify by +1dB or -1dB attached to shortcut keys to do the volume adjustment easily. As you said, that's essentially what the Compressor or Limiter does, but if there are just a few peaks to edit I'll often do it by hand.

Clipping only 'crystalises' when you Export your audio. If you save your work-in-progress as an Audacity project file (rather than Exporting the audio) the project file will preserve the clipped audio (so you can recover the clipping simply by deamplifying*) whereas the Exported audio will be permanently clipped so you have to resort to other means such as Clip Fix which may have mixed results. It's one of the few advantages of using Audacity project files, although I admit I use Export.

*Obviously we're only talking about audio that's clipped during editing. Audio that's clipped at the recording stage is a very different problem.

ETA: Thanks to Anne for explaining the volume adjustments on the cataloging process :clap:
I did not actually know this - I thought once the red vertical lines showed in Audacity it was too late! Which wasn't insurmountable - last night I tried amplifying in a copy of the track, then going to the timestamps where clipping showed up and de-amplifying that phrase a bit in the non-amplified track, then plugging Replaygain's db number into Amplify on that track to see if that still grayed out the apply button - if so, then lather rinse repeat. And what a pain in the butt!

For what it's worth, I do everything in Audacity project files, and I duplicate my track to preserve the raw original recording before I apply Noise Reduction and De-Clicker, and then I duplicate again before compression and amplification procedures. That last duplicated track is so that I don't have to do those 8 minutes of de-clicker again if something goes wrong with the amplification. (I do it on the whole track because it would take longer to try to find each and every wet mouth noise to de-click. I just make sure I have something to do while de-clicker runs. Shuttle-tatting, for instance.) Exporting to MP3 is the very, very last step. Well, penultimate step. Last step is running Checker on the MP3.

So it sounds like de-amplifying the clipping points after amplification/loudness normalization/replaygain is a viable solution and I don't have to use Clip Fix after all. And that is fantastic.
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patrickrandall
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Post by patrickrandall »

One pair of plug-ins I haven't seen mentioned yet is "Punch Copy" and "Punch Paste." They revolutionized my editing process!

https://forum.audacityteam.org/viewtopic.php?p=208312#p208312

Punch Copy allows you to copy a section of clean room tone; Punch Paste allows you to use that clean room tone to replace a section of problematic audio, say a particularly noisy or breathy space between words.

The brilliant thing about Punch Paste is that it will paste the clean room tone directly over the selected bit of audio without changing the timing between words. If the audio to be replaced is longer than the punch copy, the plug-in simply loops the copied room tone as needed to fill the space. If the area to be replaced is shorter than the punch copy, it will only replace as much as needed. In both cases, the plug in does a micro-fade in and fade out at both ends of the spliced section so it's virtually seamless.

Before I found the punch copy/paste plug-ins I used to do this manually -- copy some clean room tone / paste it over the problematic audio (which would change the spacing) / adjust the spacing back (roughly) to where it should be. It was tedious beyond words! Now when I sit down to edit, I just do my punch copy first thing, and it's available to punch paste during the session any time or place I need it. (And it's separate from the regular copy and paste functions, so you can still use those as desired for other editing tasks.)

Cheers!
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Post by quartertone »

patrickrandall wrote: February 2nd, 2023, 10:40 pm One pair of plug-ins I haven't seen mentioned yet is "Punch Copy" and "Punch Paste." They revolutionized my editing process!

https://forum.audacityteam.org/viewtopic.php?p=208312#p208312
Ha!! This is exactly the thing I needed that I didn't know I needed.
(See, this is the benefit of this thread - You don't know what you don't know. And if you don't know what's possible, you don't know what/how to ask.)
GrayHouse
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Post by GrayHouse »

NicoleJLeBoeuf wrote: February 2nd, 2023, 3:25 pm So it sounds like de-amplifying the clipping points after amplification/loudness normalization/replaygain is a viable solution and I don't have to use Clip Fix after all. And that is fantastic.
That's exactly it!

OT: I'd never heard of shuttle-tatting, and I'm very interested in craft activities, so thank you for mentioning it. One can learn so much here...
NicoleJLeBoeuf
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Post by NicoleJLeBoeuf »

GrayHouse wrote: February 3rd, 2023, 1:05 pm
NicoleJLeBoeuf wrote: February 2nd, 2023, 3:25 pm So it sounds like de-amplifying the clipping points after amplification/loudness normalization/replaygain is a viable solution and I don't have to use Clip Fix after all. And that is fantastic.
That's exactly it!

OT: I'd never heard of shuttle-tatting, and I'm very interested in craft activities, so thank you for mentioning it. One can learn so much here...
Ha! You never know what you'll learn from a thread about Audacity plug-ins and effects. (And count me as someone who also needed to hear about Punch Copy and Punch Paste. That's genius!)

I've been working on this giant tatted skull pattern, and the main time I have set aside to work on it is during my listen-through of my raw recordings and then during de-clicker run-time. It's got so that when I pull out the project, no matter where I actually am, I immediately feel like I ought to be reading something for Librivox.

(This anecdote probably belongs in the "you know you're addicted to Librivox when...")
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KevinS
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Post by KevinS »

NicoleJLeBoeuf wrote: February 3rd, 2023, 1:35 pm I've been working on this giant tatted skull pattern, and the main time I have set aside to work on it is during my listen-through of my raw recordings and then during de-clicker run-time. It's got so that when I pull out the project, no matter where I actually am, I immediately feel like I ought to be reading something for Librivox.
Very cool design! This reminds me of Latin American Day of the Dead art.
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Post by NicoleJLeBoeuf »

KevinS wrote: February 3rd, 2023, 2:27 pm
NicoleJLeBoeuf wrote: February 3rd, 2023, 1:35 pm I've been working on this giant tatted skull pattern, and the main time I have set aside to work on it is during my listen-through of my raw recordings and then during de-clicker run-time. It's got so that when I pull out the project, no matter where I actually am, I immediately feel like I ought to be reading something for Librivox.
Very cool design! This reminds me of Latin American Day of the Dead art.
Thank you! Certainly the color of the thread I'm using adds to that effect. The design isn't mine; that credit goes to Gail Weaver, who writes a remarkably easy-to-follow pattern.

Since this thread has made me more aware of clipping and the need to mitigate spikes just around the time my current project's characters are erupting in "bloodcurdling shrieks" and shouting matches :D, I have experimented with both Compressor and Limiter and found that Compressor removed more spikes from the same problematic bit of reading. But most of the people in the thread seem to like Limiter better. Other than the "track fade-in effect" the OP mentioned Compressor creating but Limiter avoiding (but which I haven't noticed at all), can someone talk a bit about the differences between the two and why one might choose one over the other?
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knotyouraveragejo
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Post by knotyouraveragejo »

From the Audacity Manual
The Compressor effect reduces the dynamic range of audio. One of the main purposes of reducing dynamic range is to permit the audio to be amplified further (without clipping) than would be otherwise possible. Therefore by default the Compressor amplifies audio as much as possible after compression. The resultant increase in average or RMS level can be useful for audio played in a noisy environment such as in a car, or in speech, to make a distant voice sound as loud as a close one. Because the gain changes relatively slowly, a compressor does not distort the signal in the way that a Limiter or clipping would do.
See https://manual.audacityteam.org/man/compressor.html

Note: You can uncheck the box for Make Up Gain for 0db after compressing and just adjust the volume as a separate step.
Use the Limiter effect to pass signals below a specified input level unaffected or gently reduced, while preventing the peaks of stronger signals from exceeding this threshold. Mastering engineers often use limiting combined with make-up gain to increase the perceived loudness of an audio recording during the audio mastering process.
This limiter effect provides two basic types of effect; "limiting" and "clipping". The "limiting" effect is a special kind of dynamic compression that responds very rapidly to peaks in the waveform. The "clipping" effect is a kind of distortion that changes the shape of the waves by "clipping" off the high and low peaks.
See https://manual.audacityteam.org/man/limiter.html

My advice would be to experiment with both and choose whichever sounds best to you for your recordings. :)
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TriciaG
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Post by TriciaG »

The Audacity limiter effect does have an option for "soft" or "hard". I think "soft" compresses as described as "limiting" in that quoted paragraph, and "hard" clips (or snips - takes a lawnmower or hedge trimmer to the wave forms and makes them a hard line).
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Post by audiomike »

Let's start with the compressor. People seem to think that compressors are the 'go to' way to get rid of spikes. Not so. A compressor's purpose is to reduce the dynamic range (the difference between the quietest and loudest bits) of a recording. Yes, it will reduce the spikes, but it will also raise the quiet parts in an effort to reduce the dynamic range, i.e. compress it. If there is any noise in the recording, the compressor will make it louder. You can add breaths to that too. It takes a lot of experimentation with compressor settings to get them right.

A limiter's function, on the other hand, is simply to limit the maximum signal to a specified threshold. A hard or 'brick wall' limiter has a very fast attack and release time which can distort the signal. A soft limiter, which is what you want to use, has a slower attack time and a rather long release time resulting in a smoother transition. And just to be clear, a limiter will not cause clipping. At least it's not supposed to. It will simply do what the name implies, limit the upper value of the signal. Anything that falls below the threshold will not be touched. If a signal was clipped during recording, a limiter is not going to fix it. You can't get something that wasn't there to begin with. It will just limit the clipped signal to the threshold.

So a soft limiter is usually the best way to get rid of spikes without raising the noise floor and mucking up your recording.
One more thing, never use Makeup Gain for either effect. Adjust your gain when you're done with all the effects.
Clear as mud. Right?
NicoleJLeBoeuf
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Post by NicoleJLeBoeuf »

Thanks to everyone's patient explanations, I think I understand better - and I've used Limiter to great effect on tonight's files!
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VOgalUS
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Post by VOgalUS »

Penumbra wrote: January 25th, 2023, 8:22 am Filter curve to roll off low frequencies (0db at 100 Hz and above to -30 db at 60 Hz and below)
De-clicker (doesn't almost everyone use this by now?)
Loudness Normalization (-19 LUFS always gets me within a db of 89)
Limiter (limit to -3.5 db; I started using this when recording a book for Audible)
Noise Reduction, although for things like airplanes flying over or the furnace kicking in I just wait until I can't hear it any more and then re-record from where the noise started.

All but de-clicker I use on the entire file; they don't take much time to do. I spend the vast majority of my editing time cutting out goofs and repeats and adjusting timing and pacing. I'm not comfortable with punch and roll so I just record everything as I go and clean it up after. Perhaps this takes longer, but I can stay more focused on the reading if I'm not also editing in the middle of my recording.
Hi Penumbra,

Is this the order that you use these plugins? I've heard that order can be important when using some plugins.
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Post by Penumbra »

Hi VOgalus
My actual process looks like this:
1. Record straight through (no punch&roll for example) with 20 seconds of room noise at end
2. Delete goofs, repeats, coughs, sneezes, very long pauses, etc
3. Do a script check and mark deviations
4. Apply low frequency roll off (filter effect)
5. Apply declicker effect for spike and mouth noise removal
6. Timing and pacing fixed (usually this includes using the truncate silence effect, but keeping the 20 seconds at the end for use as the noise profile in 9)
7. Script errors fixed
8. Mastering (loudness normalization effect, limiter effect)
9. Apply noise reduction effect and truncate ending silence to 5 seconds
10. Give the file one final runthrough to be sure I am satisfied with it.

This is approximately what I do. Sometimes I combine 5 and 6 in one pass, usually I continue to fiddle with timing/pacing during 7 and 10. Unlike some, I don't try to minimize time spent editing. It generally takes me a week to go from initial recording to submittal, and I listen to the entire recording several times (2, 3, 5, 6, and 10) in the process.

As far as the order of effects, my ordering is somewhat arbitrary. It makes sense to me to do roll off and declicker early in the process just to get them out of the way. Script error identification and fixing could happen in one go. The mastering step should be near the end so you don't do much fiddling after that. For me, loudness normalization always results in amplification of both signal and noise, so I do noise reduction after so I can be sure the level is adequately reduced. The Audacity manual says this about noise reduction:
Amplify or Normalize may be done before or after Noise Reduction.
Do any Notch Filtering or Click Removal before doing noise reduction.
Do any compression or any other effects not mentioned above after doing noise reduction, not before.
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