Detect Silences and Reduce Volume (Breaths)

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gravy6
Posts: 31
Joined: Wed Nov 18, 2009 11:37 am

Detect Silences and Reduce Volume (Breaths)

Post by gravy6 »

I am wondering if there is a setting(s) that I can use to reduce breath volume in a long recorded narration. I want to leave most of the breaths in, but reduce the volume of them. Ideally I'd like to visually see the marked silences in the waveform first and then adjust the settings. Anything like this in Goldwave?
DougDbug
Posts: 2172
Joined: Wed Feb 16, 2005 3:33 pm
Location: Silicon Valley

Re: Detect Silences and Reduce Volume (Breaths)

Post by DougDbug »

You can try the Compressor/Expander effect, starting with one of the Noise Gate presets. (A noise gate reduces or kills the audio when the level falls below the chosen threshold.) You can select the whole file to do it automatically, or select only the breath sections and apply the effect multiple times.

Or, you can try Shape Volume to "manually" reduce the level. The trick with Shape Volume is to leave the end-points unchanged so you don't get any sudden changes.

Some applications have something similar to Shape Volume, called a "automation" or "rubber band", or Audacity has an "Envelope" tool. These tools allow you to adjust the volume continuously throughout the program (unlike GoldWave where you can only shape the selected audio).
DewDude420
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Re: Detect Silences and Reduce Volume (Breaths)

Post by DewDude420 »

gravy6 wrote:Ideally I'd like to visually see the marked silences in the waveform first and then adjust the settings. Anything like this in Goldwave?
You can use auto-cue to mark silence. This would at least give you markings on where silence was detected and could zoom in.

I don't think this is the type of thing it'll do automatically for you.
gravy6
Posts: 31
Joined: Wed Nov 18, 2009 11:37 am

Re: Detect Silences and Reduce Volume (Breaths)

Post by gravy6 »

I was asking as Twisted Wave has detect silence and it will reduce the volume on the "silences" recording I cannot abandon Goldwave as it is what I am most comfortable with. I was hoping Goldwave had it too.
donrandall
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Joined: Wed Dec 01, 2004 11:06 pm
Location: Denver, Colorado

Re: Detect Silences and Reduce Volume (Breaths)

Post by donrandall »

Gravy...

If you value the quality of your voiceover, edit each breath separately.

Highlight the breath, take a look at the time (shown near the bottom of your screen) and perhaps remove a third, perhaps as much as half, of that breath from the middle. Some breaths are longer or shorter duration than others, so shorten only the longer ones. Then use Change Volume to reduce the level to whatever you decide sounds best... and that means a little bit of experimenting. If your breath sounds are not loud to begin with, any reduction should be slight, and more so if they are louder. The idea is to reduce breath sounds, not eliminate them, you should be looking to achieve a very natural flow.

You can probably improve your voiceover if you remove one breath out of three or four... depending of course on how often you take a breath. Here's a tip on technique: Highlight the breath sound you want to remove, but don't delete it--Instead, use Edit>Mute. Then go back and delete about 60 or70%... leaving the rest as a brief silence. That will avoid creating an artificial sound. Again, a little experimentation is a good idea.

In the preceding tip, I am assuming that the silence will not seem out of place because you will have a noise free track... and Goldwave's Noise Reduction tool is very, very good. Unless your recording studio/room is too noisy, it should serve you very well.

Good Luck and best wishes!
gravy6
Posts: 31
Joined: Wed Nov 18, 2009 11:37 am

Re: Detect Silences and Reduce Volume (Breaths)

Post by gravy6 »

I found a solution after much trial and error. This worked for my breaths in voice over recording. In the filter menu > Noisegate I chose the preset No Igoring of Brief Sounds. And it completely took out automatically ALL of my breaths -- which is what I was looking for. :D
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