Simple Audacity Forum Voice Test

Hello to all my Audacity First-Responders!

I feel like I’ve had success! Thank you all so much for your help!

I got the new plugins set up for ACX check and RMS Normalization.
My Equalization effect does have a low roll-off for speech option, so I’m using that. I assume I don’t have to do that coding thing that Koz sent. Or now do I have to learn a programming language too? If so, I might have to quit this whole endeavor and take up knitting or something. It took me at least a 1/2 hour just to find my hidden plugin file. But like you said, painful at first but now it’s in there and I don’t have to deal with it.

So, I did the mastering protocol Koz sent. And the first ACX check came back with the noise floor at -59.6, so then I ran the Noise Reduction effect and got it down to -71.4 Was that the right order to do that in, or should I have added that Noise Redux bit somewhere else in the protocol?

I feel like the order of operations for the effects is extremely important.

Which brings me to my final question: When/how to use Noise Gate? I have applied Noise Gate using the default settings to the sample here after running the ACX Process chain and Noise Reduction.There are several levels to set in Noise Gate and I’m not sure how to arrive at the proper ones for my particular breathing dB which varies, of course.

I have a particular breath at 6.5 sec that’s as loud as some of my spoken words. I think it’s natural to hear a breath between “I said,” and “My dear bird…” but I’m wondering what my options are for reducing those audible breaths even more. Obviously improving my mic technique is one option :wink: but I am sure that I’ll never completely avoid that. Do I need to alter noise gate to adjust, or do I just work magical effects on each intentional audible breath one-by-one.

Also, would Punch copy/paste be used after Noise Gate? Or before?

Thank you as always for your help! I feel like I’m getting close mastery at the remedial level!