Minimum sound length in sound finder

Add an option to the sound finder of minimum sound length.

Parameters:

• sound length
• keep short sounds with: before; auto; after.

keep with Auto would keep short sounds with the sound block which is closest (shortest silence period).

When I’m preparing recorded talks for publishing, I clip them into sound segments then edit each segment separately. At least half the segments are very short (less than 1 sec) as found by the Sound finder tool and are not independent - they’re either part of the sound segment before or after.

This would automate the process of creating coherent sound segments from these recordings.

In the next Audacity release, Sound Finder and Silence Finder have been replaced with a new “Label Sounds” effect. The new effect has an option to specify a “minimum label interval” so as to avoid lots of labels when there are many short sounds.

It also has options to use “peak level”, “average level” or “RMS level”. When using “average level” or “RMS level”, very short sounds (such as crackles on a record) are ignored.