Re: How do you soften applause?

<jberry@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:1127862813.783673.202630@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> I have a WAV file of spoken voice, punctuated by applause. The
> audience is very polite, they don't applaud while the person is
> talking. However, the mike picked up the applause very loudly. While
> the levels of the spoken voice are all pretty low (varying from person
> to person), the applause and sometimes laughter is right out to the
> limits.
>
> What I want to do is to take all sounds above a certain threshold
> (which would be the loudest that the speaking voices get) and cut its
> volume by an amount that I determine. Say 18 dB. So in effect, I'd be
> deamplifying only laughter and applause.
>
> I know that I can get so-so results using (Dynamic Range) Compression
> (in Audacity) with Gain not applied afterwards. I also know that I can
> do this manually, by selecting each instance of applause and processing
> it by hand. But this is the computer age, so why can't I do it all at
> one go? Another way to look at this concept is a kind of gating, with
> the reduction being applied only to sounds which are ABOVE a certain
> level rather than below. Audacity doesn't seem to have gating anyway,
> or at least not under that name.
>
> Does the concept I have outlined have a name?
>
> The Compression filter in Audacity is numerated in dB, and the waveform
> is numerated on a scale from -1 to +1. Is there a rule-of-thumb
> equivalency between those two scales?


I have no knowledge of Audacity, but you are attempting to do exactly the
right thing, it is called compression or dynamic processing, and lots of
software
will do it very successfully. Try Soundforge, Cubase etc these have the
added advantage
of being able to use third party plugins if you are not happy with the in
built version

Dave H


.

Relevant Pages

  • How do you soften applause?
    ... I have a WAV file of spoken voice, punctuated by applause. ... Audacity doesn't seem to have gating anyway, ...
    (rec.audio.tech)
  • Re: How do you soften applause?
    ... >I have a WAV file of spoken voice, ... the mike picked up the applause very loudly. ... Audacity doesn't seem to have gating anyway, ...
    (rec.audio.tech)
  • Re: How do you soften applause?
    ... > I have a WAV file of spoken voice, ... the mike picked up the applause very loudly. ... > I know that I can get so-so results using Compression ... different time constants than what speech does, ...
    (rec.audio.tech)