Audacity is a free open source audio editing platform with a wide range of editing capabilities. Knowing these simple but integral Audacity editing tips will help you transform your audio editing. It’s one of the top pieces of audio editing software in the business, and guess what? It’s free!
How to remove background noise in Audacity
When editing your audio, you find quite often you have additional noise in the background or static producing a fine buzzing noise. To remove the noise simply follow these steps:
- Highlight a section of recording where there is no background noise, this will be used as a base for Audacity.
- Then, Select Effect > Noise Removal in the menu options.
- Click on Get Noise Profile.
- Highlight the entire recording from start to end.
- Select Effect > Noise Removal in the menu.
- Click OK.
Truncating silence in your audio
A common problem that occurs when editing audio is the constant gaps of silence. The easiest way is to highlight each gap that you wish to remove and hit delete. However, it’s not that easy if you have multiple hours of audio footage. Here’s how you remove that silence in one quick click:
- Select the entire recording
- Click Effect > Truncate Silence
- The settings Min Duration, Max Duration, and Silence Threshold are used in Audacity are to determine which parts of the recording count as “silence”
- The Silence Compression module determines how much of the silence is removed in your clip. Instead of removing all silence, it simply compresses the audio.
- Finally, click OK.
READ MORE: How to reduce background noise in premiere pro
Ripping audio from video files in Audacity
Ripping audio from video isn’t too complex and is a smooth transition in Audacity. Make sure beforehand you download and install FFmpeg for Audacity and LAME for Audacity.
Once you’ve installed these follow these simple steps:
- Open the video file in Audacity
- Click File > Open
- Then, select File > Export
- Choose MP3 as the export file format
- Press Save
And that’s it! You’re done.
How to generate sound effects in Audacity
No need to worry if you don’t have any sound effects, as Audacity has plenty of samples for you to use. The generate menu has multiple options but is not too useful on their own. However, mixing these with the effects offered in the effects menu will help you achieve the sound you are looking for. It’s a great extra to have and well worth experimenting with.
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