win 7, audacity 2.1.0. i think .exe
being new to audacity, i am not well versed in the basics. the help manual talks about “select the entire region… want to reduce the noise”. i am not doing so well there. at first i selected the entire range, and now, everytime i open the file, it remembers this and i dont know how to over write it to get just the first 5 seconds.
i also dont’ know how to get the first 5 seconds. can i just type 1 and 5 in the selection start and end boxes? i cannot easily highlight the first 5 seconds of an hour long wave.
need an audacity for dummies.
also, the noise is a dehumidifier that was running in the background. didnt even notice it when i was taping. it now is like 10x louder than the voices. any suggestions on Noise reduction, Sensitivity, and Frequency settings? or just start at zero and preview for the best? oh, and, Noise: reduce or residue?
i cannot easily highlight the first 5 seconds of an hour long wave.
You need to zoom-out. 
need an audacity for dummies.
also, the noise is a dehumidifier that was running in the background. didnt even notice it when i was taping.
That’s normal… You almost always notice more noise in the recording than you notice “live”. I think it’s related to our directional hearing ability. We subconsciously focus on the sound we want to hear and ignore sounds coming from other directions. When the desired sound and noise come from the same speakers, the noise seems worse. The more recording you do, the more you become aware of ambient noise.
it now is like 10x louder than the voices.
If that’s really true, noise reduction won’t help and the cure will probably be worse than the disease. Noise reduction works best when you have a constant-quiet background noise… It works best when you don’t really need it. (Pros still record in soundproof studios.)
any suggestions on Noise reduction, Sensitivity, and Frequency settings? or just start at zero and preview for the best? oh, and, Noise: reduce or residue?
Just follow the [u]User manual[/u]. Start by getting a Noise Profile, and then you can experiment withe the other settings.
actually, zoom in worked to give me the first minute by second.
but i still could not update the noise reduction
appreciate your ideas on the other stuff, but in still need help in updating the noise reduction settings.
It’s also because you can see the sound source, especially with speech. Everyone is a lip-reader. Our brain mixes visual and auditory information and that cancels out unwanted noise.
Noise isn’t as bad as many people think. Even when there’s no visual stimulus, our brain cancels out (white) noise after seconds. That’s why it’s far better to leave a little in, than to process to much and cause artefacts. In fact, in professional audio, a little bit of white or pink noise is often added to get over a sound that is too clean, too “digital”. If you listen to songs that have been treated like that, with headphones and good gear, you’ll only notice if the next song has a very low noise floor, or if there is absolute, digital silence between the songs.
What help do you need? See the User Manual link Doug posted. As Doug said, you won’t remove the noise if it’s 10 times louder than the signal.
If you really can’t work if out, select a few seconds of the noise on its own then File > Export Selected Audio… and save as a WAV file. Then select a few seconds of the audio you want to keep that also contains the noise, then File > Export Selected Audio… . Then attach the two WAV files to your post. See How to attach files to forum posts.
Gale