Help for Audacity on macOS.
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This forum is for Audacity on macOS 10.4 and later.
Please state which version of macOS you are using,
and the exact three-section version number of Audacity from "Audacity menu > About Audacity".
Audacity 1.2.x and 1.3.x are obsolete and no longer supported. If you still have those versions, please upgrade at
https://www.audacityteam.org/download/.
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1.2.x and
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kozikowski
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by kozikowski » Tue Dec 24, 2019 2:43 am
Cardioid
Cardioid (heart-shaped) points the sensitive part of the microphone to you. Omni tries to record the whole room—all directions, and bidirectional records you and whoever is behind the mic but not the sides. Speak into the company name.
Is there an easier way to set that in Audacity rather than manually clipping each file?
Nobody can hit that kind of timing without editing. You're also going to have to suppress the breath you take at the beginning.
"[Gasp] Hudson Valley farms......."
So cut out the gasp and then cut off everything to the left of 0.1 seconds.
I'm guessing you'll be the voice of a machine or process.
"The eight forty-five from Leominster is now arriving on track 14. Please mind the gap between the train and the platform."
Koz
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bbrady32
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by bbrady32 » Tue Dec 24, 2019 3:47 am
Yes, it's work for an education company reading Question stems and answer choices (just like my new samples). I installed the de-esser you posted earlier, but my settings screen looks different from yours...
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- Screen Shot 2019-12-23 at 9.46.08 PM.png (149.02 KiB) Viewed 1881 times
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bbrady32
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by bbrady32 » Tue Dec 24, 2019 3:48 am
And yes, it is the Samson G-Track.
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Trebor
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by Trebor » Tue Dec 24, 2019 4:29 am
bbrady32 wrote: ↑Tue Dec 24, 2019 3:47 am
... I installed the de-esser you posted earlier, but my settings screen looks different from yours ...
I suggested Steve's De-esser plugin,
Koz was showing Paul-L's DeEsser plugin for Audacity.
Paul-L's is capable of surgical-precision, but can be slow to process audio,
whereas Steve's can be much faster, but less precise.
BTW if you are using Steve's these are the settings I'd recommend with the new mic ...

- suggested settings for Steve's DeEsser with new mic.png (15.21 KiB) Viewed 1866 times
Apply these de-esser settings
after your audio is loud enough to pass the Audacity ACX test.
( Steve's & Paul-L de-essers are threshold-dependent: if the RMS is low they will have little effect).
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kozikowski
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by kozikowski » Tue Dec 24, 2019 11:56 am
We're not curing killer problems, here. There are just one or two places where the SS sound is slightly more pronounced than it probably should be.
Just before 3 seconds
PoSSessive.
And just after 5-1/2 seconds.
Cacti'SS Needles
If you didn't notice it, chances are good nobody else will, either.
Who's writing the book? I don't think I would have used the word "cacti," that nobody else on earth uses. That and I don't think the possessive is warranted there. Cacti Needles are a thing and they don't separate. It's like describing Cacti Green. "Cactuses" is acceptable plural in my dictionary, but that gives you plu-possessive punctuation nightmares. Is it Cactuses' or Cactuses's?
"While washing my car, I accidentally backed into my cactus' needles." (Actual, real-life event).
Koz
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bbrady32
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by bbrady32 » Wed Dec 25, 2019 3:27 am
Thank you for the settings.
In this recording gig, I'm recording answer choices -- so some of them are wrong...
With the very short (.1 seconds of room tone) clips that they want, I'm finding I'm passing noise easily (-84 to -87 dB) when there is 1 or 2 seconds of room tone. When I run the check again though, I'm failing (-24dB)...??? It's driving me crazy. This wasn't happening before (Or maybe I wasn't re-checking after I trimmed?)
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bbrady32
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by bbrady32 » Wed Dec 25, 2019 3:32 am
Here is a raw sample of one it's happening to.
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- ShoulderRaw.wav
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Trebor
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by Trebor » Wed Dec 25, 2019 4:21 am
bbrady32 wrote: ↑Wed Dec 25, 2019 3:27 am
With the very short (.1 seconds of room tone) clips that they want, I'm finding I'm passing noise easily (-84 to -87 dB) when there is 1 or 2 seconds of room tone. When I run the check again though, I'm failing (-24dB)...??? It's driving me crazy.
Sometimes the Audacity ACX tool gives spurious results, depending on the audio selection.
If you view the waveform in dB, (rather than in linear),
the room-tone RMS level is below -60dB after raising the overall RMS to -20dB ...

- room tone level on dB scale.gif (324 KiB) Viewed 1817 times
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bbrady32
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by bbrady32 » Wed Dec 25, 2019 4:25 am
So, does that mean I am actually passing and it's just giving me bogus results? Is there a way to fix it? I did probably ten clips last night and not one problem. Tonight, I haven't had a single one pass...
Thanks for your help, Trebor.
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Trebor
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by Trebor » Wed Dec 25, 2019 5:03 am
bbrady32 wrote: ↑Wed Dec 25, 2019 4:25 am
So, does that mean I am actually passing and it's just giving me bogus results? ...
Yep, the ACX tool is giving me bogus high values for noise if I select part of your audio, rather than all of it ...

- ACX tool can give bogus results.gif (228.48 KiB) Viewed 1816 times
Your audio does contain a lot of
infrasound, which is inaudible, but can be measured by RMS tools.
Even if that's not causing the spurious results, you should remove it with a rumble-filter, or bass-roll-off filter ...

- high-pass filters which remove infrasound.gif (207.57 KiB) Viewed 1816 times