Audacity 2.3.1 win 10
Chris’ dynamic compressor (was using normal but now using beta. the issue persists)
I use Chris’ dynamic compressor for my commentary on my lets plays. The keyboard clicks and background noise is usually removed since they are below the -30db and my floor setting is -29ish. Recently, however, the background noise is also being raised, completely ignoring the floor setting. This has resulted in keyboard clicks as loud as the commentary. Does anyone know a fix to this or what is causing it?
Also, I have saved and exited since so I can’t undo but this is for future reference. unless you know a way to undo after exiting
settings attatched
It will do exactly that if your voice got quieter.
Get closer to the microphone and/or announce louder. It wouldn’t take much. Chris is acting as a noise gate and they are notoriously difficult to use or adjust. If your voice gets too quiet and too close to the volume of the noise, the software will not be able to tell them apart.
Koz
The thing is that my voice is usually above -18db and the floor is set near -30, just above the noise. I have also tried using a noise gate plugin to lower the noise by 20 (quieted only the noise so the voice and noise were even further apart like -60 sound to -18 voice) and then used compressor but it didn’t help, it still raised it right back up to my voice level. Maybe it would have helped if I set the noise gate to lower by 100 and got rid of it entirely but as I said i can’t test that now since I save and quit since then
but it didn’t help
Right. Chris works a lot like a broadcast compressor with overall Gain Control first and then applying specific corrections depending on your settings. The noise volume didn’t change leaving voice volume.
I note that’s the only thing you didn’t change.
Koz
If you are referring to noise gate falloff being 0, i hav3 tried with that being between 0 and 1 ive tried 1 and more, no difference.otherwise i can record some clips when i get home to better display the issue.
If you are referring to noise gate falloff
No. I’m referring to talking louder, even if only as an experiment. If you lean into a recording just slightly as a test and suddenly all your problems vanish, then that’s a terrific clue.
Does anyone know a fix to this or what is causing it?
Do you use any other sound programs? Skype is famous for changing computer sound settings to suit itself and to heck with what you want. If your post includes the words “for some reason,” or “suddenly with no warning,” that’s the first place to look.
Some game systems can do that, too. You may be trying to get the computer to do two (or more) different sound tasks at the same time. That’s OK as long as it works, but then it stops working, it can be really interesting to fix.
Koz
I’ve never used Chris’s Compressor…
Dynamic compression makes the loud parts quieter and/or the quiet parts louder which makes the signal-to-noise ratio worse. That’s normal.
Most compressors have make-up gain to bring-up the overall volume, so of course that brings-up the noise floor. I’m pretty sure “Renormalize” is Chris’s version of make-up gain.
A noise gate is downward dynamic expansion (the opposite of compression). It makes the quiet parts quieter (or makes them dead-silent) which (hopefully) improves the signal-to-noise ratio.
Where the noise is mixed with the signal a noise gate won’t kick-in. The total-overall sound level has to be below the threshold.
The total-overall sound level has to be below the threshold
as seen in this example, it is.
Do you use any other sound programs? Skype is famous for changing computer sound settings
No i do not. the only things open really are discord, audacity, a game, and obs
attatched are the audacity files for a clip i just recorded. before and after compression. same settings as in earlier screenshot
before compress.zip (717 KB)
after compress.zip (816 KB)