Distortion when noise removed

Audacity Help Forum Windows
1

Audacity 2.0.6 ~ Windows 7 64-bit

I record wildlife cam streams and upload clips to YouTube for publishing on forums and in Facebook groups. I am useless with Audacity but since forum member Trebor help me (nearly 3 years ago!) I’ve had a go at Noise Removal on the odd occasion when it was really necessary, but I need help with the finer points.

All I do is the basic Get Noise Profile, select an area, and OK it. Could I do something else to prevent distortion and generally improve the result?

(This is the sound of Great Horned Owls - rather repetitive at first but there’s a nice variation @ 2m45s.)

Before noise removal:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yjzyykp9bl0

After noise removal:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uvmAuMVs_Vg

I’ve noticed that the audio always starts out distorted after noise removal, but it does settle down.

I’d be grateful for any tips - but I don’t understand technical language.

2

It’s normal for noise reduction to be imperfect. When the noise is bad, sometimes, “the cure is worse than the disease”. But, with your recording, I prefer the noise-reduced version.

You can select and mute the parts between the “hoots”. (Or, you can just reduce the volume during the “quiet” parts so it doesn’t sound too unnatural with the sound cutting in and out completely.)

3

Update to the current 2.1.1 version of Audacity from here: http://audacityteam.org/download/.

Use the (new) “Noise Reduction” effect. Here is an example using settings of 48, 3, 4