Audacity Forum

Hi:
I have a bunch of files, each of which contains a single word. I want to have exactly .4 seconds of silence in the beginning and the end of each one of them.
My question is: is there a way to automatically remove the silent parts from a file, namely, have Audacity identify the recorded part and then remove the excess (and then, of course, add .4 seconds of silence in the beginning and the end)?
Many thanks,
Eugene

I think that's a little too granular for the Audacity Chains system. Chains is the batch system and it's pretty basic. You're looking for tools that sense voice and then calculate new cursor locations, launch an edit, etc. etc. I think that's beyond us, but others may know more.
Koz

Thank you for your answer.
EM

kozikowski wrote:I think that's a little too granular for the Audacity Chains system. Chains is the batch system and it's pretty basic. You're looking for tools that sense voice and then calculate new cursor locations, launch an edit, etc. etc. I think that's beyond us, but others may know more.
Koz

As long as the recordings are reasonably good quality (low noise level outside of the words), you can use "Sound Finder" to detect the start and end of the word, marking it with a label that starts (about) 0.4 seconds before the word and ending 0.4 seconds after the word. http://manual.audacityteam.org/manual/h ... _detection

You can then use "Export Multiple" to export the labelled section. http://manual.audacityteam.org/manual/h ... tiple.html

Steve, thank you so much. It seems to be the the tool I was looking for. I'll test it right away!
EM

steve wrote:As long as the recordings are reasonably good quality (low noise level outside of the words), you can use "Sound Finder" to detect the start and end of the word, marking it with a label that starts (about) 0.4 seconds before the word and ending 0.4 seconds after the word. http://manual.audacityteam.org/manual/h ... _detection

You can then use "Export Multiple" to export the labelled section. http://manual.audacityteam.org/manual/h ... tiple.html

Steve, "SoundFinder" doesn't show on my "Analyze" menu, though curiously, there's a file named "SoundFinder.ny" in my plugin folder.Any idea how to activate it? Thanks again.
EM

steve wrote:As long as the recordings are reasonably good quality (low noise level outside of the words), you can use "Sound Finder" to detect the start and end of the word, marking it with a label that starts (about) 0.4 seconds before the word and ending 0.4 seconds after the word. http://manual.audacityteam.org/manual/h ... _detection

You can then use "Export Multiple" to export the labelled section. http://manual.audacityteam.org/manual/h ... tiple.html

Check in "Audacity > Preferences > Effects" and ensure that "Nyquist Effects" are enabled.
If Nyquist effects are already enabled then you may not have Audacity installed quite right - I've seen other posts about resolving this problem on Mac OS X - I'll have a look to see if I can find one of them.

steve wrote:I'll have a look to see if I can find one of them.

Here you are. I don't use MACs myself but this topic goes through a number of possibilities. Work through the suggestions until you find the appropriate solution: http://forum.audacityteam.org/viewtopic ... 74#p184674
Please write back to confirm which solution worked for you, it can be very helpful for other visitors to the forum.