Noise at head of clip is always greater than noise at end of clip

I’ve been recording a script for a powerpoint presentation, and of course when I make an error I stop, go back to the next gap after a sentence, and take up recording again. The difficulty is that even though the ambient sound characteristics are identical, the second of silence at the end of the previous clip is quieter than the first second or so of the new clip. I don’t know if there is some Dolby-like software process that needs to taste the ambient sound before knowing what to remove or what, but there is definitely a difference every time between how quiet the silence is at the end of a clip and the silence at the head of a new one.

I can adapt to this if there is nothing to be done about it, by making a label track and noting the boundaries of every clip and going back after recording the whole thing to chop off all silence at the head of a clip and, if necessary, using copy and paste from the end of each previous clip to add the proper amount of silence between clips.

I have done a modest amount of post-recording noise reduction, but that only lessens the effect, rather than removing it.

Any advice?

Webb Mealy

Running Audacity 2.4.2 on Win10 with a fast processor and Samson CO1U microphone

Audacity doesn’t apply filters, effects or corrections to recordings. The most exciting this it can do is turn recording on and off with presentation volume.

But there is just a festival of Windows and Windows-associated applications and drivers that can affect the sound between the microphone system and Audacity.

We publish possible trouble areas for simple Windows and you are warned not to leave Skype, Zoom or any of the other communications apps running while you do production. Some of them can accidentally leave voice processing behind after they close.

https://manual.audacityteam.org/man/faq_recording_troubleshooting.html#enhancements

Just as an experiment, disconnect the network or WiFi and restart the machine. Open the show. Does the background noise volume still change when you edit?

Koz