Spikes after trimming silence

Sorry if this has been mentioned before guys, but I can’t find it.

Recently I have noticed, whenever I trim some silence or reduce amplification of some space between sentences (to remove some background noise, etc.) I get one or two spikes seen in the spectrogram. These spikes produce an audible click. And if I delete them or reduce them, they pop up again before my eyes!

This is getting really frustrating as I do voiceovers and it’s taking me ages to sort out.

Any ideas guys? Many thanks!

I’m on Windows 10
Audacity version 2.4.2

The spikes in the spectrogram occur because there is an abrupt change in the waveform (a “discontinuity”). It is that discontinuity that causes the click:

Tracks000.png

If you make your edit points occur at “zero crossing” points (see: https://manual.audacityteam.org/man/select_menu_at_zero_crossings.html), then clicks are less likely, or less severe:

Tracks001.png
or if you can make your edit points occur during silences (or almost silent), then clicks can be completely avoided:

Tracks002.png

Thank you Steve I’ll try that!

Isn’t there a way to get Audacity to “fade” between waves instead of cutting? It’s the abrupt slicing of the waves that causes the problems.

The video people tend to not have this problem because all cuts happen at video frame boundaries, but more important, they all fade or dissolve rather than abruptly cut.

That’s not a gift from the angels because sooner or later you need to cut the sound at a time in the middle of a frame and you end up in a separate sound editor, but you can go a long time before you run into that problem.

Koz

Yes, you can use the “Crossfade Clips” effect: Crossfade Clips - Audacity Manual