Audacity Professional Vocals for Courses Video & More Part 2

Files and Projects

Audio Recording and Editing Overview
• Overview of Recording High Quality Audio and Editing
  • Audio Recording Overview – Narration and Vocals focus
    • Critical to capture best source audio possible
    • Equipment
    • Software – Camtasia/Screencast and Audacity/Audio
      • Camtasia – screencast recording, and initial content editing. Does have some audio editing features, but we recommend exporting and using more powerful editing software. Our main example will be a screencast using Camtasia.
      • Audacity – audio only recording (narration, podcasts, voiceovers, etc.), powerful editing tools.
    • Applications – Courses, Narration, Podcasts, YouTube, etc.
    • Course overview - Recording overview, Editing Audio
  • Equipment: microphone -> mic input or interface -> pop shield -> room reflection dampening  -> recording software, multi-track
  • Audio Editing Overview – content (cutting, copying, pasting, rearranging), quality (noise removal, normalization, compression, equalization), projects, exporting final audio
  • Experimenting and practicing is critical to good audio

Introduction to Audacity
• Introduction to Audacity
  • Audacity Introduction
  • Software with open project
    • High level short overview, tracks, tools, buttons, play, record, edit, effects, effects are not real-time, they are processed, but some have real-time preview, content editing, export final audio, preferences
  • Website
  • Audacity FREE audio recording and editing software for Mac, Windows, Linux
  • http://audacityteam.org/
  • http://manual.audacityteam.org/o/index.html
  • http://wiki.audacityteam.org
  • Very powerful, lots of useful tools and effects, works with multiple audio formats
  • Excellent support community and support site, definitions page, widely used
  • Other software of your choice can be used, as these techniques apply to other audio editors, though tools, settings, and process may differ

Overview Of Audacity Tools Part 1

• Transport Toolbar, mention spacebar and other shortcuts
• Tools Toolbar
• Recording Meter Toolbar
• Mixer Toolbar
• Playback Meter Toolbar
• Edit Toolbar
• Device Toolbar
• Transcription Toolbar
• Tracks
  • Track Controls
  • Mono or Stereo
  • Track options and tools
  • Track Waveform and Spectrogram

Overview Of Audacity Tools Part 2

• Selection Toolbar – start, end, length, position
  • Timeline, quick play
  • Select, cut, copy, paste, move, zoom
  • Selection hand to expand
  • Selection play only that portion
  • Selection apply effects to only that portion
  • Select portions of multiple tracks
• Saving projects
• Exporting files, formats
• Importing files
• Audacity Preferences
• Keyboard Shortcuts

Editing Audio Content with Audio Software Part 1

• Select only the track you are working on – you can select multiple tracks and they will be affected by your edits
• Very quick review audacity playback settings and tools, zoom, hand, cursor,
• Playback and monitoring the audio
• Emphasize that if working with video or slide presentations, you need to keep everything where it is for syncing
• Deleting a selection – moves all other audio up to join, therefore changing the overall length and position of that audio in respect to video, or slides
• Inserting silence to remove noises keeps content length
• Inspecting the waveform – zooming for detail, identifying waveforms that become easily recognizable like breaths, other noises.
• Select play back position
• Spacebar stop and start
• Selecting a section of audio
• Headphones and volume to hear every little noise
• Visualizing and listening are both important
• Removing vocal breaths
• Keyboard shortcuts
• Selecting a section – playback. Selecting the wrong portion of a wave for when cutting, pasting or muting, at times can cause a pop, and sometimes you grab too much of a silent section and add a pop.
• Fade-in/fade-out technique that helps remove cut noises
• Always listen to edits right away to make sure they are clean

Editing Audio Content with Audio Software Part 2

• Continue analyzing audio for edits
• Removing Pops and clicks
• Zoom to individual samples, draw away pops
• Insert silence to remove pops
• Adding silence to beginning and end – mention syncing

Effects Overview

• Effects introduction
• Too much processing or processing with effects in wrong sequence can degrade audio quality
• There are many different techniques to accomplish audio goals. Experiment constantly.
• Audacity 2.1.1 allows the saving of effect presets
• Effects we cover: Noise Reduction, Compression, Normalization, Equalization
• Review the use of effects to remove noise, compress levels for consistency, EQ the bass and treble for clarity, normalize levels for raise the volume
• Audacity effects are not done in real-time. They are processed to audio selection faster than real-time. Many effects do have live previews however.
• Effects menu. Each have settings and properties of their own.
• Effect preview preferences

Effect Examples and Third Party Plug-ins

• Effects examples
• Audacity has it’s own “built-in” effects. You can get other effects for Audacity beyond these. Check the Audacity website for more info.
• Noise removal, compression, normalization, equalization
• Nyquist Noise gate effect example:
  • where to find on Audacity site
  • download
  • installation
  • More info can be found on website http://wiki.audacityteam.org/wiki/Nyquist_Effect_Plug-ins
    http://wiki.audacityteam.org/wiki/Nyquist_Effect_Plug-ins#Noise_Gate

CHALLENGE: Install Nyquist Noise Gate

Noise Removal – Manually Part 1

• Overview: Noise removal is the process of removing unwanted noises manually or with noise removal software. Noise can include white noise, vocal breaths, and other noises.
• We will review three techniques - manual, noise reduction effect, noise gate effect.
• Each technique has its own advantages and disadvantages. Combining them often works best.
• This lesson covers manual removal
• Manually find noise and remove
• Use headphones and good volume settings to hear noise and processing
• Use zooming to identify details and properly and accurately make selections
• Listen through whole file for noise or mistakes
• Identify noise
• Fixing cut issues
• Deleting content: when deleting a section, add same amount of audio silence back after to keep length and sync
• Removing vocal breath noise
• Insert silence

Noise Removal – Manually Part 2

• Removing vocal breath noise (continued)
• Insert silence
• Show keyboard shortcut
• Slow but very accurate
• Save project and re-save regularly

Noise Removal – Manually Part 3

• Manual noise removal continued
• Removing pops and clicks
• Zooming to samples
• Draw tool to draw out pops
• Remove extreme peak noises to help with other processing including normalization
• Insert silence to remove pops
• Re-record audio sections if noise removal is not possible
• Delete bad audio section, replace new audio over same length of section
• Cutting and moving sections without changing overall file length
• Save project regularly
• Removing more pops
• Some noise simply can’t be removed and must be replaced or tolerated

Noise Removal – Manually Part 4

• Manual noise removal continued
• White noise
• This technique has limitations with certain things like white noise
• Can remove from silent sections manually, but not from behind speaking sections
• Removing manually between words sounds obvious as the white noise is gone between words and still there during speaking, and can sound jumpy and unprofessional
• Removing bad vocal habits - remove an entire word by inserting silence over it, cleaning up cut with fade-in
• Summary - advantages and disadvantages to this technique

CHALLENGE: Remove Noise Manually From Audio Examples

Noise Reduction Effect Part 1

• Use headphones and zooming techniques for best results
• Overview
• Settings and definitions
• Project example
• Analyze recording
• Removing “breaths” using them as a noise profile. Multiple different examples from subtle to extreme.
• Good to do noise removal before removing every single piece of noise which will be needed for a good noise profile
• Noise profile process
• Noise removal settings
• Too much can sound like a tin can, or robotic
• Example with white fan noise
• Using frequency smoothing
• Best to use noise reduction on whole track, for consistency and to keep certain chunks of audio from sounding different than others within a single file
• Example with jingling 
• Copying and collecting pieces of noise, assemble on separate track to be used as noise profile

Noise Reduction Effect Part 2

• Show noise profile process
• Show noise removal settings
• More breath removal examples

Noise Reduction Effect Part 3 – White Noise

• Show example with white fan noise
• Using frequency smoothing
• Best to use noise reduction on whole track, for consistency and to keep certain chunks of audio from sounding different than others within a single file
• Example with jingling 
• Coping and collecting pieces of noise, assemble on separate track to be used as noise profile

CHALLENGE: Remove Noise From Audio Examples With Noise Reduction Effect

Noise Gate (Nyquist) Part 1

• Overview
• Settings and definitions
• Project example
• Breath removal examples

Noise Gate (Nyquist) Part 2

• Attack and decay
• Saving presets
• Very fast process when applying good settings to an entire file
• More noise examples

Noise Gate (Nyquist) Part 3

• White noise example
• Example with white fan noise – may not be the best for this, show anyway
• Multiple different kinds of noise at once example
• Using different techniques on different sections
• Good to do noise removal before removing every single piece of noise which will be needed for a good noise detection and comparison
• Show how too much can sound bad
• Very fast process when applying good settings to an entire file
• Importance of experimenting, practicing, and documenting settings, order, and overall process for repeating

CHALLENGE: Remove Noise From Audio Examples With Noise Gate

Noise Removal - 3 Techniques Together Part 1

• Example project
• Apply all three techniques to file
• Start with white noise removal with noise reduction effect
• Noise gate and vocal breath removal
• Manual noise removal

Noise Removal - 3 Techniques Together Part 2

• Example project
• Noise gate and vocal breath removal
• Manual noise removal

Last Pass To Clean Up Other Noises Part 1

• Example project
• Duplicate most recent track with all fixes
• Analyze leftover noises after clean up
• Remove awkward or “habit” words
• Remove spaces between words by moving words
• Remove pops and clicks
• Click removal effect
• Click removal manual
• Repair effect
• Insert Silence
• Though this can be tedious it is wort it for projects that you have public for years to come

Last Pass To Clean Up Other Noises Part 2

• Example project
• Repair effect
• Insert Silence
• Amplify tool
• Finish
• Though this can be tedious it is wort it for projects that you have public for years to come

Compression and Normalization Part 1

• Compression Settings and definitions
• Noise floor can also be things like traffic or crowd noise at low levels
• Project example
• Analyze audio, notice peaks and valleys
• Notice ranges between hi and low levels before and after compressing
• Applying compression with different settings
• Normalizing
• Importance of experimenting, practicing, and documenting settings, order, and overall process for repeating

Compression and Normalization Part 2

• Extreme compression examples
• Too much compression can sound unnatural, as the human voice needs some dynamics to sound natural
• Noise floor
• Noise floor can be white noise, or background noise like traffic and crowds
• Make up gain for zero dB after compressing setting
• Final compression for our example
• Compression give a much louder sounding output since the dynamic range between lows and highs allows the highs t be higher, therefore giving the whole file a louder sound
• Lowering post compression rouge peaks manually to enhance normalization
• Final normalization
• Review
• Importance experimenting, practicing, and documenting settings, order, and overall process for repeating

CHALLENGE: Compress and Normalize Audio Examples

Equalization

• Use equalization to adjust bass, mid-range, and treble frequencies to improve sound

CHALLENGE: Use Equalization to Adjust Audio Examples

Homework Ultimate Challenge Files

CHALLENGE: Fix Final Audio Sample Using All Techniques Part 1

CHALLENGE: Fix Final Audio Sample Using All Techniques Part 2

CHALLENGE: Fix Final Audio Sample Using All Techniques Part 3

Exporting Final Audio and Importing to Project Part 1

Exporting Final Audio and Importing to Project Part 2

Multi-track Audio

CHALLENGE: Create and Mix a Multi-track Project