Noise floor too low

Sally Seligman · Post by **Sally Seligman** » Fri Feb 19, 2021 12:30 pm

Hi, Everyone!
After getting the peak and rms right, the noise floor is way too low. It’s -145! My room is not that quiet so I’m pretty sure this happened when I was working to get the other levels correct. Does anyone know how to raise the noise floor in an audio file
without changing the peak and rms levels?
Thank you!

Sally Seligman · Post by **Sally Seligman** » Fri Feb 19, 2021 1:20 pm

Hello, Everyone,
Using macOS10.13.6 and Audacity 2.4.2 the peak and RMS are within the correct ACX range and now the noise floor is too low -150. My room is not that quiet!
Is there a way to raise the noise floor without hurting the peak and RMS?
Thank you very much!

Post by **kozikowski** » Fri Feb 19, 2021 2:09 pm

My room is not that quiet!

No, but your microphone or microphone system can be forcing a low noise level as you speak. You should turn those tools and services off.

It could be built into your microphone and that's up to you and your instructions.

If you're using your Mac built-in microphone, there is a setting for sound processing in Apple > System Preferences > Sound > Input.

Make very sure that Zoom, Skype or any of the other chat programs isn't running or even resting in the background. Restart your Mac and make sure nothing else starts when it wakes up.

Home readers never pass noise and oddly, sometimes it's because it's too good.

Koz

Post by **kozikowski** » Fri Feb 19, 2021 2:19 pm

To answer the specific question, yes there is Punch-In which can simulate normal background sound, but you have to manually find and edit each and every silent portion. It can take forever and still not sound right. ACX is on the lookout for patch jobs like this.

It's possible that a normal person can read a chapter again with normal settings and be making coffee when you're still struggling to get Fake Noise to sound right.

Koz

Post by **steve** » Fri Feb 19, 2021 2:23 pm

Sally Seligman wrote: ↑
Fri Feb 19, 2021 12:30 pm
Does anyone know how to raise the noise floor in an audio file
without changing the peak and rms levels?

That's the wrong question

The question we need to be asking is "how can my noise level be an implausibly low level"?

One common reason is that the audio that you are analyzing contains "absolute silence". "RMS" is a kind of "average" measurement, so any absolute silences will push down the measured noise level.

Try using the "Sound Finder" effect to see where the impossibly low level occurs (See: https://manual.audacityteam.org/man/sound_finder.html)
Use these settings (below). Any parts that are NOT labelled are below -100 dB.

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Post by **kozikowski** » Fri Feb 19, 2021 2:27 pm

And don't double post. New User messages have to be read by a forum elf before they become visible.

Koz

Post by **steve** » Fri Feb 19, 2021 2:34 pm

Duplicate topics merged.

Audacity Forum