Removing Silence in audio track

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lyovino
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Removing Silence in audio track

Post by lyovino » Thu Feb 09, 2012 7:49 pm

Okay, so you record a vocal track and now you have little blips and blops on the track here and there, either hitting the mic or something on your desk.
Is there any way of removing them other than highlighting and deleting them from the track manually?
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dtrue17
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Re: Removing Silence in audio track

Post by dtrue17 » Fri Feb 10, 2012 4:43 pm

Your best best is to go in and edit the waveform yourself ...although, there are plugins out there (that I haven't used) that are designed to reduce short clicks and pops. Search for 'Waves Click Remover' or 'Waves Crackle Reduction'. Just be careful that critical freqs in your mix aren't removed.

otherwise, a noise gate might work, depending on the dB of the taps and undesired microphone sounds. Are you currently using a noise gate anyways?

(I don't have much experience with vocals, somebody else take over from here...)
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Warrior Bob
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Re: Removing Silence in audio track

Post by Warrior Bob » Fri Feb 10, 2012 5:23 pm

lyovino wrote:Okay, so you record a vocal track and now you have little blips and blops on the track here and there, either hitting the mic or something on your desk.
Is there any way of removing them other than highlighting and deleting them from the track manually?
Taking them out manually is probably ideal, since you can fade the edges of the edit too, if you need to.

Are you looking for something more automatic or something like that?

lyovino
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Re: Removing Silence in audio track

Post by lyovino » Fri Feb 10, 2012 5:24 pm

Thanks for the tips. No noise gate here, but will give it a shot.
I was use to this feature in Logic, it's called "Remove Silence" works great.
All abnormalities are gone in an instant.
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mahkitah
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Re: Removing Silence in audio track

Post by mahkitah » Fri Feb 10, 2012 6:18 pm

are these 'blips and blops' during the actual singing or in between?

and just for interest. why is this function in Logic called 'remove silence' when it sounds to me that you want to create silence not remove it.

lyovino
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Re: Removing Silence in audio track

Post by lyovino » Fri Feb 10, 2012 6:57 pm

mahkitah wrote:are these 'blips and blops' during the actual singing or in between?

and just for interest. why is this function in Logic called 'remove silence' when it sounds to me that you want to create silence not remove it.
No they are in between the vocal waves. As for the term "remove silence", I've often wondered about that myself.
Guess you will have to ask Apple.. ;) If you have never used Logic, I can tell you this feature is absolutely killer on audio tracks.
Of couse if you are laying down synth tracks it's of no use, but with vocal tracks it comes in a a life saver. It's really great.
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Re: Removing Silence in audio track

Post by Warrior Bob » Fri Feb 10, 2012 8:11 pm

lyovino wrote:Thanks for the tips. No noise gate here, but will give it a shot.
Doesn't Live have a 'Gate' device?

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Re: Removing Silence in audio track

Post by lyovino » Fri Feb 10, 2012 8:38 pm

Yes it's in there somewhere, but I'd much prefer not having to gate the vocal track if I don't have to.
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mahkitah
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Re: Removing Silence in audio track

Post by mahkitah » Fri Feb 10, 2012 9:57 pm

Sounds to me this 'remove silence' function does exactly the same as a noise gate, but then non-realtime.
You can try playing your vocal track through the noise gate and play around with the settings until you get what you want, and then record it to a new track.

H20nly
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Re: Removing Silence in audio track

Post by H20nly » Fri Feb 10, 2012 10:56 pm

after you use "remove silence" is the audio track altered? or is it an effect you can turn on and off?

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Re: Removing Silence in audio track

Post by lyovino » Sat Feb 11, 2012 4:36 am

No the audio is not touched in any way. Each wave within the track remains virgin and stationary.
When you select remove silence, you are presented with an enlarged veiw of the audio track and all the blips between each wave.
You then adjust how much of the silent areas between each wave you want removed (It shows you what exactly is going to be removed as you increase or decrease each setting).
You hit apply and the track is clean of all unwanted blips. This all is done in a matter of a minute. The way we have to do it in Live is archaic. That's why I questioned it.
Once you use it, you will ask how you ever got by without it.
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Forge.
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Re: Removing Silence in audio track

Post by Forge. » Sat Feb 11, 2012 4:49 am

I used to work in a studio where most of my day was spent doing that to voice over tracks. We used to use Logic a long time ago, and we never used that feature - we would select the silence one by one then there was a keyboard shortcut to silence the selection so it was a pretty quick work flow.

I've found those kind of features too unreliable in a lot of cases - there is no way it can distinguish between the start of "F' and "S" sounds etc, and once you compress and bring up the level it becomes very noticeable.

Personally I love the way you can do it in Live - you just select the section and hit delete - same workflow as Logic etc, just different shortcut.

And as Warrior Bob said, you can use fades as well.

then if you need it as a separate audio file, just consolidate (CMD/CTRL+J)

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Re: Removing Silence in audio track

Post by H20nly » Sat Feb 11, 2012 5:36 am

^ that's my take on it... but for different reasons.

the whole reason i am using a DAW is to record vocals. that's my thing. that's why i'm interested.

it seems like a feature like that (one in Logic) would be awesome as long as there is an adjustable threshold.

i do the same thing though in Live... highlight... delete. if i'm not "vocalizing" then i don't need it. as far as knocking into the mic or background noise... for me, that's an automatic do-over.

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