Effects or Plugins for Improving First Part of Uploaded Recording

Hello. Is there an Effect or Plugin that would make the first 14 seconds of the clip sound like the next 14 seconds?

If not, what do you call this issue? What tips should I follow to avoid similar recordings?

Thank you very much.

Haven’t found a solution to this, but I was able to make a more consistent sounding recording since then. Tips that helped were:

  • sitting up straight (so the distance between my mouth and the mic stays the same)
  • aiming the mic to my nose (not my mouth)
  • bending the mic as far away from me as possible
  • always having water with me to drink
  • stopping recording when there’s no more water
  • going to the bathroom when needed
  • breaks after an hour of recording, breaks usually lasting 30 minutes

Hope this helps.

It sounds like “audio enhancements”, which should be turned off for faithful recording & playback.

[NB: there can be a second layer of “audio enhancements” sometimes called MaxxAudio, DTS].

Thank you for replying. I am not using Windows. My Linux Mint 22 system does not have any settings for audio enhancements.

The sample you posted is definitely not a raw (unprocessed) recording:
Noise reduction & noise gate have been applied at some point …


Apparently such effects are possible in Linux … https://youtu.be/_BBywED38O0

Please see raw recording:

Noise profile:

Noise reduction settings:

noise reduction Screenshot from 2024-10-24 10-00-56

Noise-reduction always causes some collateral-damage to the voice.
The more noise-reduction you apply, the worse the damage to the voice.
The default settings for Audacity noise-reduction are 6,6,6. You’ve set 42,24,12: waay too much.

Thanks. The default settings for noise reduction still leave too much noise for me. Plus the inconsistency is still there.

The file in the OP is also amplified with these settings:

image

Or maybe it is:

image

It sounds clear/understandable to me.
AI can remove more noise, but then the voice sounds computer-generated …

The inconsistent volume is fixable with dynamic range compression, (not noise reduction).

Thank you for recommending dynamic range compression. I have played around with the settings but can’t get a result that I am happy with. What settings would you recommend?

As for the noise, I will stick with my extreme noise reduction settings. I’m not willing to go through the extra steps of registering with Adobe just to get its Enhance Speech. Noise reduction with default 6-6-6 is not enough to remove what seems to be the sound of a fan (even though I had my fan off when I was recording this). In the full clip which I did not share here, I could still hear people talking and horns from vehicles passing by.

The latest version of Audacity introduced a new compressor. I don’t use it. I use compressor plugins. LevelSpeech2.ny is a free compressor-limiter plugin worth the effort of downloading.

There’s other free AI enhancement which does not require registration, e.g. …