Hello! I am new to Audacity and the forum in general, so apologies if I’m getting the etiquette wrong. Also apologies if this is the wrong place to post, but all the other sections in the forum seemed to fit my question even less than this one.
I am trying to replicate a specific sound profile with Audacity, but I am literally just winging it so I am not sure whether I am even applying the right effects/in the right order/with the right settings. Specifically, I would like to replicate the way the audio sounds in this video https://youtu.be/KRNOXpCVGeQ?t=35 (start at 0:35).
The key features/properties I like about the sounds in that video are:
- Definition - all words and sounds are very well-defined. It feels like silence comes on instantly when she’s done talking or producing a sound and equally her voice/sounds come on instantly at full volume when she starts producing them. This creates a very pleasant effect without sounds dragging on/bleeding into the next, if that makes sense?
- Crispiness - the sounds have a very “crispy” texture, which I guess might be a byproduct of the definition as above?
- Fullness - the sounds really pop at you, all of them sound “full” and very satisfying to the ear.
I have recorded a brief whisper audio track using exactly the same microphone with the same settings:
Original:
Apply noise reduction (12dB, sensitivity 6.00, frequency smoothing 3):
This is already making the hand sounds feel “flat” and uninteresting (I definitely need to figure out a way to reduce background noise, I am aware, but I don’t think this is the only problem).
Apply reverb (room size 0%, pre-delay 0ms, reverberance 0%, damping 100%, tone low 100%, tone high 0%, wet gain -20dB, dry gain 5dB, stereo width 100%):
Trying to give a bit more consistency/thickness/poppiness to the sounds.
Apply compressor (threshold -18dB, noise floor -40dB, ratio 2:1, attack time 0.20secs, release time 1.0secs, make-up gain for 0 dB after compressing):
I think this gets it closer, but the hand sounds are still very hollow and some of the vocals also have a sort of “emptiness” to them, if that makes sense (I think that’s coming from the noise reduction, but I can’t figure out a way of fixing it)?
As you can tell, overall this is a bit closer to the result I am aiming for, but it’s still nowhere near the way I would like it to sound. Am I going about this the right way? Are there other effects I should be playing around with? I am trying to design a repeatable set of effects to apply consistently to all my recordings so they all sound the same.
Thank you!
