Waveforms Disappear After Noise Reduction

[desdichado]

I am using Windows 10 Pro and Audacity 2.1.3.

I am recording a script for a YouTube video. Basically I'm just reading from a plaintext file while recording with my Samson Meteor mic. It's a real ghetto setup, as I don't have a stand for it yet. I just set it on its little tripod thingy on my laptop as I read from my screen.

Anyway, I managed to successfully record around 25 minutes of audio and everything appeared to be fine. The waveforms showed up as normal and I could play back normally. Then I sampled around eight seconds of noise from the start of the recording, which included a mouse click and some breathing, and ran noise reduction on the entire recording. I changed the level of noise reduction upwards from the default until it sounded okay in the previews, to 28 dB, 14 Sensitivity, and 7 frequency smoothing. Then I ran it, it took a few minutes. Afterwards, it had reduced the noise, and I could still play the recording back, but the waveforms had disappeared entirely. I checked at every level of zoom, and they're just...gone. Understandably, this makes it very difficult to try to edit the recording, since I have no visual frame of reference. I tried undoing the noise reduction - the operation completed successfully and I was able to undo/redo back and forth, but while the recording itself was fine, the waveforms did not return.

I'd appreciate it if anyone who has encountered this issue could give me some advice, as I am a novice not only at using audio recording software, but at using pretty much any professional-grade software at all. Thanks for your time.

[desdichado]

I should add, as an update, that I just exported the recording as a .wav, closed out of the recording, then opened the .wav file, and now the waveforms have returned! While I suppose this "solves" my problem, I would still appreciate any feedback you folks might have as to why this error occurred in the first place.

[kozikowski]

It's a real ghetto setup

Doesn't bother me. I once shot the backing track for a television commercial on my laptop. No microphone, just the laptop.

which included a mouse click and some breathing

Audacity Noise Reduction works best on noises that don't change. Air conditioning, computer fans, refrigerators, etc. Not so good on constantly changing noises. A good way to kill your recording is leave a TV on in the next room. No way to get rid of that.

If the problem is one mouse click, you can zoom into the click and surgically remove it with regular editing tools. Breathing is more of a problem. If you're asthmatic and constantly gasping for air, maybe you shouldn't be reading out loud.That's going to be very difficult to fix.

28 dB, 14 Sensitivity, and 7 frequency smoothing.

That's very stiff, hard removal. The highest removal recommended for AudioBooks is 12.6.6. More like 9.6.6. Higher than that and your voice is going to start acting funny like talking into a wine glass.

Before you mess with it any more, select the whole clean, unfiltered reading and File > Export: WAV (Microsoft) 16-bit. Copy that somewhere like a thumb drive or backup disk. This is your protective backup and it's good practice for later. If you're in the middle of editing a chapter of your audiobook and the computer goes up in a ball of flame, you will not have to read the work again.

If you have no clean work, Edit > UNDO what you have until you get back to your original reading and Export that. If you turned the computer off between the reading and now, there is no UNDO.

You can get your noise reduced show up by brute force with Effect > Amplify > OK. If the top number, amplification, is higher than about 30dB, then I think the show is unrecoverable even if it does get louder.

Read something according to this recipe (it's 20 seconds) and post it here.

http://www.kozco.com/tech/audacity/Test ... _Clip.html

You can't post a book chapter. The forum will only accept short clips.

Koz

[kozikowski]

I should add, as an update,

Dueling posts.

No, having the blue waves vanish is not normal. When was the last time you clean restarted your Windows machine? Shift-Shutdown and just wait it out. Then restart. It will take much longer than normal, but more likely to start clean.

Koz

[desdichado]

When was the last time you clean restarted your Windows machine?

Not that long ago, but I did as you said, just to be safe.

If you're asthmatic and constantly gasping for air, maybe you shouldn't be reading out loud.

Not an asthmatic, but like anyone who's never done voice recording before, I do make more breathing noises than I'd like in-between "takes", and sometimes while speaking. It's not a serious issue on the recording itself, I just mentioned it to be thorough. Perhaps I shouldn't have sampled it as part of the noise signature, just as I shouldn't have done so with the click?

The highest removal recommended for AudioBooks is 12.6.6. More like 9.6.6.

Roger that. I figured it might have been too high, but like I said, I'm new to all this. Of course, you're not saying that that is what killed the waveforms, are you?

Before you mess with it any more

Oops! Too late. Like I said in my previous post, I exported it with the noise removal as a 16-bit .wav. Ah well. It wasn't a great recording anyway, to be honest. I can just try again. I'm a NEET, so my time isn't exactly priceless.

You can get your noise reduced show up by brute force with Effect > Amplify > OK. If the top number, amplification, is higher than about 30dB, then I think the show is unrecoverable even if it does get louder.

By that, do you mean that if I think the noise removal at around 9.6.6 settings is still too noisy, I can just amplify the effect? I'll try to remember that.

Read something according to this recipe (it's 20 seconds) and post it here.

If that will help you help me, gimme a minute and I'll attempt that for you.

[desdichado]

Here's the audio test you asked for.

[kozikowski]

It's not unusual for a New User to go off the deep end when all they needed was a little volume change here and there. I'll listen in a minute. We had a recent poster who, after we got them to record reasonable volume in their studio, was able to pass AudioBook quality standards (barely) with minimal corrections and processing.

As we go.

Koz

[kozikowski]

I changed my mind. You should probably go off the deep end.

That explains the high noise reduction numbers. The background noise in your system is stunningly high. I can't get you to a clean reading no matter what I do.

Describe your microphone and room. I hear "bathroom" echoes. Does your recording room have fashionable bare-wood floors and plain white walls? You don't need fancy-pants microphones, interfaces, mixers, etc, but you do have to be careful how you record.

Do you have an iPhone or later model iPod?

Koz

[desdichado]

I changed my mind. You should probably go off the deep end.

Sounds fun

The background noise in your system is stunningly high. I can't get you to a clean reading no matter what I do.

Weird. The only thing I can think of that would cause that is my laptop fan, and it wasn't working particularly hard during the recording.

Describe your microphone and room.

Like I mentioned, I'm using a Samson Meteor usb mic, jacked into an old Lenovo ThinkPad W520 model laptop. My headphones are plugged into the mic itself. The whole setup is sitting about a meter off the ground on an old hardwood office desk, which is cluttered with speakers and a set of wooden box-shelves. I'm in a small bedroom with carpeted floors, though it does have bare white walls. My bedroom door was open during the recording...perhaps that effected things? You mentioned a "bathroom" echo - my bedroom door opens onto a short hallway, with two rooms with open doors right next to it, one of which is a bathroom.

I don not own an iPhone or any other iDevice.

[desdichado]

Apologies for what will probably show up as dueling posts again, but I think I might know at least part of the problem. The Meteor mic has an integrated tripod made of solid metal. I noticed when playing around with it that it would pick up even the slightest vibration in its "legs" while recording up into its frame. What I didn't think of was that setting it on top of my laptop would allow it to pick up the internal vibrations from the laptop fan. Do you think that might be it? Dammit, I really do need a stand for this thing.