Editting *.AU files

Hey guys got a question maybe someone can assist me with. I have to edit 40 AUP files and remove all the balancing that I did after the fact (balancing being the applied chains below). They were created 2 months ago and now I’m told they all have a “warble” to their sound. I’ve been asked to deliver a raw AUP file back to them without any chains applied to it. To not recreate these files would be ideal. It took me 1 week just to record them as it is.

So as I look at windows explorer and the folders created that support the AUP file for each track I’m wondering is there a way to remove certain .AU files from the D00 or D01 folder that would remove the balancing/Chains that I initially did to each recording right after I finished it and before I “cut up” the track? Or, if that’s not doable, would there be a way to reverse the chains for each track, if so how would you do it?

Any thoughts here would be greatly appreciated on how I might reverse the chains below. I’m not an Audio Engineer so I’m not very verse on what has to be done to go backwards from what I applied.

I’m running Audacity 2.1.3 on Windows 10 1703 version.

The process of creating each vocal track went like this:
Create vocal file.

Apply Chains:
NoiseReduction:Use_Preset=“”
Normalize:ApplyGain=“1” Level=“-7.000000000000” RemoveDcOffset=“1” StereoIndependent=“0”
Equalization:CurveName=“Final Micro” FilterLength=“4049” InterpolateLin=“0” InterpolationMethod=“B-spline”
NoiseGate:attack=“250.000000000000” freq=“0.000000000000” funct=“Gate” hpf=“No” level-red=“-15.000000000000” stlink=“Don’t Link Stereo” thresh=“-39.000000000000”
LowPassFilter:frequency=“4000.000000000000” rolloff=“6 dB”

Remove breaths where not needed with Silence
Cut out bad parts of track where I repeated or stumbled over sentences.
Save file.
Export file to WAV file.

Thanks for the help. Heidi B.

reverse the chains for each track

Audacity Projects don’t save UNDO. Once you save the Project and exit, Audacity goes through the machine and deletes all the show copies it made that form the UNDO pathway and burns the last edit as final.

Anything you do to the individual AU snippets in the _DATA folder may cause the Project to crash. The Audacity AUP Project Manager File and the _DATA folder are an integrated whole and don’t put up with tinkering well. For example, a good way to seriously damage a Project is simply change the filenames.

If you overdo Noise Reduction, you can get that warbly, wine-glass sound. The damage is permanent. As a fuzzy rule, you can’t take effects and corrections out of a show which is why it’s a good idea to Export a WAV of a reading and save it somewhere safe before you apply any production tools.

http://manual.audacityteam.org/man/audacity_projects.html

Koz

Remove breaths where not needed with Silence

That’s not recommended. Having your voice drop periodically to Blackness of Space silence can be annoying to listen to for long periods. They sound like choppy End of Message mistakes. Much better to paste Room Tone or background sound into the gaps.

This can disrupt your production chain because this process can fight with noise reduction.

Koz

Thanks Koz,

I tried cutting out .AU files and learned that chunks of my Audio would be removed from the track, what ever I cut out and moved to another folder. Than when I put it back and the audio missing part was there.

So I figured that removing .AU files might not be an option, but I thought I’d ask anyways.

Unfortunately, I have to remove Breaths, I’m a very noisy, breathy person when I record, nothing I do fixes it, not breathing through my nose or mouth, just how my nasal cavity is. I’ve got a high end Rode condensor mic and it picks it all up. I’ve had so many vocal files returned to me because I 'breath" too much and to loud. So the policy from my audio/video people who review my submitted files is I must remove all breathing from the track before sending it to them. As it is, breaths are removed after I apply the chains. I record, apply chains, and then remove breaths.

But that’s not what I’m trying to accomplish. I want to reverse the chains I applied to each track or at least reverse the ‘Noise Reduction’ chain, which I’m unsure of how to do. Like I said it’s been a few months since I recorded these so I have no “history” on them. I do know my process though and never changed it. And I do have the chain settings that I used.

Is there a way to at least reverse the Noise Reduction chain? NoiseReduction:Use_Preset=“”

Heidi

thank you for the reply Koz.

So how would you reverse the “noise reduction” chain. NoiseReduction:Use_Preset=“”

If I could do that it might fix everything in each track.

Heidi B.

You wouldn’t. Some things are not reversible, like “Noise Reduction” and “boiling an egg”.

Equalization is theoretically reversible, but can be tricky to do exactly. You need to apply Equalization again but with the reverse of the original curve, so that frequencies that were boosted are cut, and frequencies that were cut are boosted.

It’s pretty clear what you want.

Noise Reduction rips your voice apart and reconstructs it better and clearer (normally), but then it throws away the bits it doesn’t need any more. There is no back to go to. Sorry.

Koz

I thought there was a way to help with breath noises. I need to look.

Koz

You can use the envelope tool for a more natural suppression of breath and other odd noises.

https://forum.audacityteam.org/t/how-do-you-remove-the-sound-of-breath/42242/2

Koz

There is a dedicated tool for sibilant suppression, too.

Are you using all those tools for specific goals, or are you following a pre-baked recipe?

Koz