Help removing background noise

Audacity Help Forum Windows
1

Audacity newbie here.

In the attached file, there is a background track of a ticking clock. Is there any way to remove this completely?

Thanks!

Vlad

2

Vlad,

You can try the spectral editing options in Audacity and remove each one separately.

https://manual.audacityteam.org/man/spectral_selection.html

Mike

3

So that would be no. I think the clock is a performer in your show. I don’t suppose you could get the “parrot” to record it again?

I have an Ikea clock I have to lock in the bathroom when I record.

Koz

4

I was able to remove the clock sounds sufficiently by silencing individual sections.

However, I have a bigger issue. I’m playing the sound file from MP3 board to a single 4" 50 RMS watt speaker. The audio board has a volume knob and I have it set to maximum. Still, the volume is way too low. Amplify doesn’t work without clipping, and then the sound is way too distorted at the higher volume. Is there anything that can be done?

This was the original source of the file: https://youtu.be/MFMzZDAhY4w

I can crank up the sound just fine on my computer speakers (stereo).

I did play another sound file on the MP3 board/speaker and it sounded fine, so clearly the issue is with the audio source.

5

Wanted to share a couple futile attempts at getting higher volume. First I tried playing the sound file while recording using WASAPI. I turned the recording volume way up. The MP3 file came out way more fainter than original.

Then I just tried recording from my computer external speakers turned way up. In Audacity, the playback decibal hits zero while original file is at -12…so it would appear to be louder. However when I play back the file, it’s again very faint.

I’ve attached two more files. One is ‘V2’ with the external speaker recording. The other is another pirate sound effect that works fine on the MP3 board.

Can somebody help me out please?

p.s. I’m only playing back from one speaker. Does it matter if I keep file in stereo or should I mix down to Mono?

6

Rather than mix down to mono, just split the stereo tracks to 2 mono & delete one of them.
[ Mix-to-mono can result in a much quieter track because of destructive interference ].

7

I figured out my issue, after many hours of spinning my wheels. I’m almost embarrassed to admit: I had the two wires from my one speaker going into the left speaker negative and right speaker positive. Silly mistake, glad I caught it. And learned a few new Audacity features in the process.