Hi, I work on a podcast and we’ve been using audacity with no trouble for four years. One of our last interviewee’s sound files came out without any spaces where he wasn’t talking and someone else was. our production company, resonate, says it can’t use the file if we can’t get the silent spaces back So they can match this soundtrack up with the others. Any suggestions about how we can get the sound silent spaces back? What happened? Also, is there any kind of support from audacity that one can contact?
This is the Audacity support.
I’m trying to visualize what you have. You’re not supplying the publisher with a single, finished, mixed production file?
Other than carefully, by hand, I don’t know any way to put natural spaces back into a dialog where they’ve been taken out.
Also, note, you can’t just jam silence in there during editing. You have to use natural room tone or background noise. If you have no background noise from the performance, that means you’ll have to make some up.
It can’t take you more than a couple of weeks.
Did you warn the actor?
This may also the gold-plated time to use fake AI voice generation.
Koz
Make a WAV or Project safety copy of the work before you start working on it. Nothing like having your machine go into the dirt and take the only copy of the file with it.
Koz
There are tools that switch from natural sound to silence between words. Noise Gates try to simulate a quiet room when there isn’t one. But those leave the timing correct.
I don’t know how to get what you got. How is the performer recording their voice? Describe the shoot.
Koz
Many times the best we can do even if we can’t rescue the performance is figure out what happened so you don’t do it again. I think the voice went through a non-voice application or process. It doesn’t know it’s a voice. It just knows when the volume or data drops past a certain point, stop recording.
I don’t know when or why you would want that. This is me working my diagnostics backwards. If someone write me a big check, how would I intentionally do this. It would not be easy.
Koz