Hey there. I’m a little new to using Audacity, at least when it comes to anything past basic compression, recording, and editing. I’m trying to find a way to reduce the sound of fire in some CoD footage and amplify some of the commentary behind it. I was still working on the OBS sound balance at the time and the commentary is lower in volume than I would like as the levels were based off of the beginning of matches and don’t line up with activity later on.
I’ve been messing around with filter passes and noise reduction but so far either I don’t have the knowledge on the frequency I need to remove and haven’t been able to find it so far, or I’m barking up the wrong tree. Does anyone have advice on this?
Btw, I’ve already tried compression and amplification alone, it isn’t nearly enough, but does get things just audible, but that’s to me, and as usual there’s bias there since its my own commentary and know what I said.
Indeed this is in a video but I had stripped the audio out so I could redub it in when it was “fixed”. Subtitles wouldn’t be hard for the original purpose of the clip and was something I was going to put in already, but third parties had asked for these specific clips so I was attempting to also clean it up for them.
Edit: I’ve managed a kind of compromise using a combination of compression and limiter settings, using the limiter make up gain setting. It isn’t perfect and causes a little bit of fall off when paired with louder sounds, especially with 3d sound going on, but its much better than what I started with.
(Effect > Equalization > Graphic EQ)
Go after the fire sounds:
Those crackling noises usually live around 1kHz-8kHz
Try pulling those sliders down by about 3-6dB, just enough to take the edge off
Then help your voice cut through:
A small boost around 300Hz-1kHz (+2dB or so) will give your voice more body
If you want extra clarity, a tiny nudge around 3kHz-5kHz can help words stand out
Just go easy on the adjustments, small changes usually sound better
