Am I being too literal?
I think you are scrambling your tools. Punch/Copy/Paste series isn’t for background noise. That’s for tongue ticks, lip smacks, and epiglottal pops. Tiny, sharp, annoying sounds that distort smooth, pleasant speech.
I’m working from spare room and need to apply noise reduction in order to pass ACX check.
You should do everything possible to avoid background noises in original readings. I published the Kitchen Table Sound Studio…
…and there’s no shortage of methods of soundproofing a room with common materials like blankets and towels.
There’s some tricks too, like never set a microphone directly on a table.
Effect > Noise Reduction isn’t “free.” It causes voice distortion and your job is to arrange the tool’s adjustments for the least damage. In addition, Noise Reduction isn’t the only tool that can reduce noise. Rumble equalizers, notch filters, and the mosquito filter can all be used to “clean up” your show, depending on what’s wrong. You shouldn’t need any of them.
Past the voice quality damage, there’s the corporate/business problem. How much time do you spend cleaning up your work? You should be cleaning up your studio and you only have to do that once.
Noise Reduction can be used for converting a just barely passing performance to easily passing. In hard numbers, that’s using Noise Reduction of the beast (6, 6, 6) to move ACX Check from -62dB noise to -68dB noise.
Post a raw sound test.
https://www.kozco.com/tech/audacity/TestClip/Record_A_Clip.html
Koz