On going voice activation commentary

Audacity Help Forum Windows
1

Hey guys,

I am running Windows 7 Enterprise x64 and Audacity 2.0.5…

I’m trying to record my voice when talking but be silent when I am not talking, BUT continue to keep rolling the recording. It may seem confusing on what I am trying to do, but I will provide an example. I want to commentate on a video (whether is be pre recorded, or currently recording) and have my voice recording stay in sync with the video even if I have silent parts (so the recording has to continue even if it’s technically not recording any sounds).

Thanks.

2

Unless you have turned on Sound Activated Recording Audacity will do exactly as you are asking - see: http://manual.audacityteam.org/o/man/transport_menu.html#sar

You can toggle this from the Transport menu.

WC

3

I was actually trying to use Sound Activated Recording, but I guess that was my problem. But I don’t want the microphone to stay on when I am not talking (hence why I was trying SAR) to try and eliminate any background noise.

4

Audacity doesn’t have (but could have) a post-roll feature for Sound Activated Recording, whereby recording continues for a user-specified time after the input falls below the threshold level. That feature would continue to record the actual input, not replace it with absolute silence.

Rather than exchange the post-roll with silence, it would be possible to pad the areas where input falls below the Sound Activation Level with silence, so that effectively the recording is continuous. We can count your vote for that if you like. Doing that is under consideration for Windows WASAPI loopback recording, which behaves like Sound Activated Recording on some machines, even if Sound Activated Recording is off.

Meantime I would just use Effect > Noise Removal on the microphone noise after the recording.


Gale

5

That would be a nice feature, and probably exactly what I am looking for! So yes, you can count my vote.

I will try that Noise Removal tool, thank you.

6

I’d like to have both a post-roll and a pre-roll. I’m recording animal sounds, and the sound level doesn’t rise and fall abruptly through a suitable trigger threshold nor is the ambient noise constant. I’m either recording mostly ambient noise or missing the start and/or end of the sound I want to record. Essentially, I’d like the pre-roll to work like the trigger on a digital oscilloscope - buffer X milliseconds of data but watch for the trigger (threshold reached) ahead the buffering, then start saving data from the start of the buffer.

7

I added your vote.


Gale

8

Use a noise-gate , (rather than “noise removal”), to squelch the faint hiss when you are not speaking down to proper silence, you can get a Noise-gate plug-in for Audacity here … Missing features - Audacity Support

[ “Plug-In Installation” instructions …http://audacityteam.org/download/plugins ]