Selective volume level reduction

[paulnaude01]

I get strange echo noises when using noise reduction (filtering) on recorded speech and would like to attempt another method that I am not sure if it can be done currently in Audacity.

Instead of using the noise reduction feature or any other frequency filtering technique, I would simply like to select all the sounds with volume amplitude ranges (from + to - ) in a specified range and reduce their volume, without touching the sound peaks higher than the set limit.

I understand that the noise will then still be present where they coincide with the vocal sounds, which I can then attempt using noise reduction on, but then I might be able to get rid of the funny sounds that are evident in between words.

I am quite interested to hear what it would sound like.

The attached pictures attempts to explain what I mean.

Regards

[steve]

@paulnaude01

I would simply like to select all the sounds with volume amplitude ranges (from + to - ) in a specified range and reduce their volume, without touching the sound peaks higher than the set limit.

The effect you describe is called a “Gate” (“Noise Gate”).
There is a Noise Gate plug-in available here: http://wiki.audacityteam.org/wiki/Nyquist_Effect_Plug-ins#Noise_Gate
Instructions for downloading and installing: http://wiki.audacityteam.org/wiki/Download_Nyquist_Plug-ins#download

[paulnaude01]

Fantasic, thanks! Now I have another tool to experiment with.