Macro chain for Paul L's Declicker in 5 minute segments?

Programming and Development Macros and Scripting
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I want to apply Paul L’s Declicker for larger recordings but there is some kind of limit either with memory or buffer that causes the plugin to just crash for larger segments of audio. As a solution, I thought of maybe setting up a macro to process the recording in a chain with chunks of 5 minutes, but was not sure how to do that, especially when the recording length varies each time.

Is there a way to have a macro select either rolling 5 minute sections or maybe something percentage-based to run the plugin in manageable chunks? Perhaps another solution? :nerd:

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Just a quick update: I figured out how to split a track into regular interval labels by going to Tools > Regular Interval Labels. Then I select to Create labels based on: Label Interval and specify the Label interval in seconds. From there, I select the Label Track then go to Edit > Labeled Audio > Split Cut.

This creates evenly spaced cuts that I can then reference with the macro through the Select Next Clip command.

The part I really need help with is how to setup the macro to loop the entire set of clips for various recordings that I want to apply the Declicker to. The only thing I could think of with my limited knowledge of macros is just to maybe edit the macro file and copy/paste a bunch of repeat steps of the Select Next Clip then De-Clicker on that interval. However, if the recording is shorter than the amount of steps I prepared for, the De-Clicker would run on the same interval for many steps since at the last clip, the next clip doesn’t change the selection. I could pad extra time at the end of the recording so that the repeated De-Clicker steps affect disposable parts of the recording that I could just trim off before continuing the chain of processing.

If you’re wondering why I want to use Declicker for a longer recording, it’s to reduce the mouth clicks and pops for call recordings. The built-in Click Removal tool is just too broad and non-specific that it ignores the actual issues that Paul L’s Declicker solves spectacularly.

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Congratulations on the progress you have made so far with Macros :exclamation:

So that would be because you cannot currently do looping with macros.

If you require looping, look into Nyquist or Python see: Scripting

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cannot currently do looping with macros.

Macros can’t make decisions. IF this happens THEN do that. See higher level languages above.

Koz

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reduce the mouth clicks and pops for call recordings.

Call recordings? Customer complaints? Will my call be recorded for training purposes?

Koz

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Ha sometimes. It’s more for business calls with my partner in these cases. Typical recordings are typically 1-3 hours.

The current bottleneck is that while I can create clips between sounds or intervals, I cannot seem to get clips split by each track to have the DeClicker process the tracks independently eg. clips split the entire project. So I will have to run the macro for one track then clear the clips and label track to do it again for the second track. For a multi-hour track, this could mean waiting an hour or more for the macro to finish.

With any autonomous operation, there is always some concern with an outlier situation slipping by. One of the concerns I had with clipping by a fixed interval was getting oddities if the fixed interval fell between a peak. I wasn’t sure how the plugin would handle the transition between clips. By labeling by the sound peaks and setting a threshold, I now have clips that are always between silences and are at least 1 minute in length. I’m pretty damn stoked about the progress so far. I still need to run through more testing here.

Here is the macro in action right now: https://gfycat.com/SplendidIncompleteCrayfish [Click the SD button to make sure it’s not potato quality]

To get the count of iterations, I just use the number of label sounds and add extras to make sure I get to all of the clips. I’m observing an issue where the macro doesn’t advance to the next clip selection and I’m not sure why. It seems to affect maybe 10-20%. I have to test this more though. From what I’ve seen, running the DeClicker multiple times doesn’t seem to hurt anything.

For some reason, the first clip selection doesn’t even choose the intended clip, but something before it. If the macro command for Next Clip works just like the Alt + , keyboard hotkey, then the first and extra steps would just use the DeClicker on non-important selections. So if you have extra iterations, it just processes these empty selections for a little bit and all is okay as it seem Audacity has some head and tails thing for clips on a track, which is good.

Then for the macro itself, I just pinned the .txt file for Quick Access and go to an online repeater tool like https://pinetools.com/repeat-text to generate the text to copy over. For this example, there’s 138 labels so I might use 160 or 170 steps to ensure it runs all the way through.

Also, from what I observed, once the macro is done, you can still do an overall undo and redo to see the changes. So while there’s been a chain of DeClicker changes, overall we can still see the before and after as if the plugin ran one time for the entire track. This is also a method to check if all of the clip selections were processed.

Anyway, that is where I’m at and still working through this.