New plug-in effect - PopMute

This is currently an experimental effect.
It does not contain any error checking for invalid input and may have bugs.

The effect is like an upside-down Noise Gate.
The effect can heavily attenuate loud sounds. It may be useful for rescuing recordings that suffer from loud clicks or pops.

Downloads:
version 0.2 (obsolete)
version 0.1 (obsolete)
Current Version


I’m not sure if the “link stereo channels” setting in v.01 is worthwhile as I’d imagine that in most cases it would be preferable to process channels independently.
Comments welcome.
[Update: decided that linking stereo channels was not useful, so removed in final version]

Remember this? Heavy suppression of the pops without affecting the rest of the performance at all.

Koz

Is this something to do with a feature in Audacity that no longer works?



Gale

No. It’s a new tool that Steve wrote. First “in the wild” application.
Koz

This was the “in-the-wild” example: https://forum.audacityteam.org/t/click-breathing-noise-not-sure-what-to-call-it-removal-help/17396/1

Koz has asked previously if there could be a “reverse” of my Noise Gate plug-in for muting pops and raised the question again in that thread.
Finally got round to making it: https://forum.audacityteam.org/t/new-plug-in-effect-popmute/17499/1

I like that the “skirts” of the active segment can be tuned so not only the plosive blast goes away, but the slight click before and after as well. That example is far from what I can do with more effort. You can still hear I didn’t get the delays quite right.

Given that there is no valuable work at all during the pop, gracefully suppressing them without damaging anything else is a good thing – and I didn’t drill them down to nothing, either. They’re just a lot lower than they were and probably a handful of dB down from the overall show volume. They sound like the performer is too close to the microphone, but the pops don’t shatter glass any more.

Koz

Looks promising.

I’ll play with it a bit and let you know how I get on. I’ve a very badly damaged copy of Neil Young’s “Harvest” (damaged before I got it, I hasten to add) which should make a good test bed.

However, one problem I can see with a record as badly damaged as this, is that there are places where I’m left with gaps where the pops used to be, which is nearly as bad. What about looking at the audio level for, say, 10ms either side of the pop, and setting the attenuation to that level?

POL

If the effect is being used on one pop at a time, that relatively easy to do.
If you mean that you want to be able to process multiple pops with a dynamically changing mute level that follows the dynamics of the music, that is quite a bit harder, and I expect that it would also require the threshold level to also change dynamically.

This is not a “clever” effect, it just blindly attenuates sounds that are above the threshold down to a “floor” level. I’ll have a look to see if I can make it a bit more intelligent without it becoming horrendously complex.

Pop Mute is a real time saver. I record church services for CD and podcast, and we have a couple of people who can’t remember not to clap in front of a mic. I fade out the mic, but not before I’ve got a string of spikes in the recording. With this tool I can squash the whole string in one operation instead of manually fiddling with each one. It even works on coughs. Just one simple improvement to suggest: Separate settings for attack and decay. I use a ceiling mic to pick up individuals in the congregation speaking without a mic. Sometimes a cough reverberates, so it has a sharp attack and a slow decay. The separate controls would let me approximate the event envelope.

Thanks for the feedback Koz and DickN.

(Topic merged with original “PopMute” topic)

There’s always a balance to be drawn with this type of plug-in between flexibility and simplicity. As the complexity of the interface goes up, the usability goes down (especially for casual or novice users). My aim was to make this plug-in as simple as possible to use.

That’s a persuasive argument for adding one more slider.

There’s been no comments regarding the “Linked Stereo” mode, so I’m guessing that it’s not really useful.
I’ve removed the “Linked Stereo” option in this version, though it can easily be re-enabled (open popmute.ny in a text editor and read the comment text near the top of the file).
popmute.ny (1.84 KB)

Can I run this in batch mode?

i.e. Can I configure/set popmute, and then run it across all of my dance/trance mp3s which have an annoying kick drum?

Only built-in effects can be used in the 1.3 batch mode at File > Edit Chains.

You could import all the files, Select All then run the effect and come back later to do Export Multiple (this assumes there is no valid reason not to using this effect). However it would add silence at the end of tracks so as to make all the tracks as long as the longest one, so that’s a good reason not to run Nyquist effects on more than one track at a time at the moment.



Gale

Also the optimum “popmute” settings for the different tracks (e.g. threshold) may be different : so each track should be processed individually rather than in a batch.

Hi,

  1. How do I install popmute? How do I confirm that it was installed correctly?
    I put the latest popmute.ny in:
C:Program FilesAudacityPlug-Ins

After that, I rebooted the machine and loaded the attached mp3. Under the Effects menu, I notice there’s a “Click Removal” which lets me choose Threshold and Spike Width. Is this popmute?

  1. Please tell me how to remove/reduce the kick drum in the attached mp3.
    When I tried all the different extremes for “Click Removal”, the kick drum didn’t change.

Which version of Audacity are you using? (look in “Help menu > About”)

Hi,

I’m using version 1.3.12-beta.

  1. How do I install popmute? How do I confirm that it was installed correctly?
    I put the latest popmute.ny in:
C:Program FilesAudacityPlug-Ins

After that, I rebooted the machine and loaded the attached mp3. Under the Effects menu, I notice that there’s a “Click Removal” which lets me choose Threshold and Spike Width. Is this popmute?

  1. Please tell me how to remove/reduce the kick drum in the attached mp3.
    When I tried all the different combinations of extremes for setting “Click Removal”, the kick drum didn’t change.

That looks like an Audacity 1.2 installation folder.

Have a look and see if there is another Audacity folder in C:Program Files
It may be called something like “Audacity 1.3 (beta)” or “Audacity 1.3 Unicode”

That track does not lend itself to using pop-mute to remove the bass drum: on that track the bass drum does not produce peaks above the rest of the track, which is what the pop-mute technique I suggested relies upon.

You could just cut the bass from it using equalization to reduce the bass, a before-after example and equalization curve are attached.

What was the benefit of linked stereo? If the pop was only in one channel it would seem to artifact the other channel to no purpose.

I attached a wav file with an artificial spike of 10 ms (EDIT this meant 10 samples, see post below) generated white noise. Strangely Click Removal seems to remove it with less artifacts than PopMute (I tried less attack though it did not help much, and I appreciate setting the mute level is critical). Perhaps like Paraic, I think it might be good if the effect could be more clever and have an “auto” setting that tries to figure an appropriate residual level. Even when I matched the mute level exactly I still sensed more of a “whoosh” in the area than Click Removal produced. Perhaps unlike Click Removal, the recommendation for PopMute should be to use it on as small a region as possible?

Clearly though there are many cases where PopMute works and Click Removal has little or no effect.

I added links (not attachments) to the front page post:

Is that a good way to keep it updated?



The “benefit” is:
If the effect is applied to audio with a long burst of noise on one channel, using a slow attack/release, independent channel processing will cause the stereo image to swing violently across to the side without the noise (not much fun if you’re wearing headphones and riding a bicycle at the time).

In practice I found that linking the channels is very rarely useful, and in my opinion not worth the additional control.

You mean 10 samples of white noise?
Yes, for very short clicks the Click Removal effect is much better, but with clicks of 10 milliseconds or more, Click Removal will hardly touch them, and that’s where “Pop Mute” can come in useful. Pop Mute not a subtle effect, it just bashes spikes with a big hammer, but it can make loud pops (and even hand claps, drum beats and small explosions) less obtrusive.