Trying to remove the pop when muting and unmuting the mic while recording

Audacity Help Forum Windows
1

So.

Windows 10
Audacity 2.3.2

So. I recorded a video with Fraps and every time I muted the mic to cough or something it created a loud POP! on both the mute and unmute events. Trying to remove those pops and having not much luck. The “Click removal” effect pops up "Algorithm not effective on this audio. Nothing changed’ when I try to preview it. Anyone have a ‘For dummies’ newbie guide to doing this? Thanks!

https://www.dropbox.com/s/l5ajsa9tue69rq8/50%20Ways%20to%20Die%20at%20Dr%20Nicks%20Sample.wav?dl=0

2

I think the “correct” answer is to use a better mic - one that doesn’t pop when you switch it on / off. Other than that, I think it’s a case of editing them out one at a time.

3

Agree on the mic part, the problem is this lapel mic doesn’t have a mute switch inline and so when I have to sneeze or something I have to unplug it and plug it back in again. >.< Only one experience with a desk mic, the Blue Snowball, and, same issue, no mute switch and it picks up more of the ambient noises, like the tv in the other room, my fan blowing on me, etc that the lapel mic doesn’t pick up. So, how do I edit out these pops with out affecting the background music?

4

There is a common assumption held by many people before they acquire experience recording, that any space can become a recording studio by putting a microphone in it. Experience quickly proves that this assumption is false. To make studio quality recordings, you need a recording space that is extremely quiet, and substantially free of echoes - anything else is a “field recording” and you have to accept compromises in sound quality.

The way that a professional media company would record the show, would be to record the game, then record the voice separately in a studio, then edit the two recordings together. Nobody, other than professional producers, want to do that, because it is too much trouble. That’s why the vast majority of game videos have poor sound quality.

5

Again, agreed, but I am not a pro by any stretch of the imagination. And my space is very limited, no spare room I could hang dampening cloths in and my room is a working bedroom so… Anyway, not really getting paid for this, just doing this for fun, but I also don’t want my audience to get their ears popped by the loud POP! that’s in this recording and future recordings. So I need to, at a wild guess, make this stay on an even keel and not max out at some fempto second peak that threatens to blow out your speakers and ears.

6

If all the pops are louder than your voice ever gets,
then the PopMute plugin can detect & silence them all.

7

Love the concept:
“What are you doing Steve?”
“I’m working… zzzz” :smiley:

“PopMute” is a “Nyquist Plug-in”. Installation instructions are here: https://manual.audacityteam.org/man/installing_effect_generator_and_analyzer_plug_ins_on_windows.html#nyquist_install
As Trebor wrote, this is only an option if the amplitude of the pops are greater than the voice.

8

That worked, after a fashion. Pop is still there but it’s no longer RIP headphone users and RIP speaker. Just I have to select just the pops or my voice cuts out at spots. But if I select just the pops I can be more aggressive with it. Cool! Thank you Trebor.

9

You can get a [u]cough switch[/u]. But, it’s designed to work with a pro microphone (low-impedance balanced XLR connection.) Muting a “computer mic” is harder because the signal wire also powers the mic and if you switch the microphone power on & off you’re going to get a “pop”. (Studio condenser mics use something similar called “phantom power” and it would be tricky to deal with that too, but I’m sure there are professional solutions.)

If you have a microphone preamp (or mixer) you can more-easily mute the output of the preamp. But, it’s still a little more complicated than a “simple switch”. You need some resistors to keep the input from “floating” when the switch is off.

10

In all the cases you supplied so far, the microphone is electronic and getting power from the interface or the computer. So you are not only muting the sound, you are also unplugging the power and plugging it back in. That’s what’s causing the pops. You might actually have better luck with another technique of clapping when you need to cough or sneeze so you can find it easily later and edit the actual content rather than trying to mess with the hardware.

When you do fluff, repeat the next even sentence or phrase. Do not try to edit out a word or two. That will drive you nuts.

Koz

11

Well, even better is if I ever crack the code on how to sync two audio tracks together then I could record voice with Audacity and game audio with video with Fraps. Then if I need to clip out a part of what the mic picks up it won’t affect game audio. O.o As for a pre-amp, a quick search turns up mostly XLR to 3.5mm or USB, not finding 3.5mm to 3.5mm to provide a mute switch for the mic.

12

What problem are you having with doing that?

13

If splitting game audio from your voice is the only problem, then stop using the computer to record your voice.


H1nTechnicalSetup.jpg
Play the game into your headphones and announce into a stand-alone sound recorder. Transfer the live voice track to Audacity and edit out your bad sound. Mix with the game sound as needed.

That’s not fluff. I can produce an audiobook quality track with that recorder—by itself—and a quiet room. Probably its worse problem is needing batteries, but you can get a power supply for it and run it from the wall. It has provision to plug in a 3.5mm microphone, although I haven’t tried that.

Separate Sound systems can have sync problems, but you can work around that by lifting one headphone pad and let the microphone record game sound at the beginning and then again near the end. Effect > Change Speed to sync them up. You only have to do that once as long as you don’t change computers or recorders.

Koz

14

Well, no, the problem is getting the two to sync up to begin with. I would have to start Audacity, alt-tab into the game, start Fraps, do something in both voice and in game to sync them together, and start the recording in earnest. It’s that something that’s got me. If I was recording from a camera I could clap my hands and then sync the loudest part of the clap to when the hands are together, nice easy visual way. But, in my experience, there is always a delay from, let’s say, saying ‘fire’ and hitting the mouse button and the game actually firing what ever in game weapon my character has equipped, might not be much, but it’s enough that I notice and it bothers me. >.< So I wind up fiddling around for a bit until it’s close enough for government work.

And some games don’t like you alt tabbing out so I would need a second PC of some sort to record audio onto, transfer it over, and then fiddle for the next 5 min dragging the audio on the timeline back and forth until I was happy with it. So either way it’s not easy to sync up a second audio track to the audio / video track, after that it’s easy peasy, I can use Audacity to clean up the voice track, compress it, clip out pops, ect before hand and, if need be, in the video encoder, boost the voice and game audio independent depending on what needs boosting.

Oh and that H1n your flashing at me above? Holy Mary, $119 US for last years model, a bit pricey for a hobby that I don’t get paid for. O.o

Oh wait, I just had a completely crazy idea. Fraps has the option to record external input, it’s set to the microphone, and with that is an option to only record while pressing a key. I could set that to some obscure key that isn’t used normally by games, then start Audacity, alt-tab in, start Fraps, press key, say something, like ‘sync’, and it would be recorded in game and in Audacity, then release key, start episode. In the editor I could sync them up by that word, then trim off the parts before I started the episode with the two audio tracks synced. I’ll have to test it when I get home from work.