Audacity Voice Over

• Audacity Voice Over Software
• Audacity Voice Over Software

How to install Noise Gate plugin?

Audacity does not have a built-in noise gate. Hence, you will have to download and install it.

It is great for voice-over recording and audio editing purposes. With the right equipment used Audacity needs very few settings changed to produce perfectly sounding audio. Before I explain what Audacity settings you need to produce the clear voice-over audio I want to give a shout out to the amazing team who made Audacity software. For long format voice such as audio books, podcasts, etc. Audacity has become my first choice. For music, short VO, and most other work I'll use Reaper (since I've also washed my hands of Pro Tools). But Audacity gives me every thing I want and need. It's not as friendly as. What is this course about? This course is going to show you how to create fantastic sounding voice-overs using the free Audacity software. This course shows you how to build a home studio on a budget for voice-over work, how to choose the perfect microphone suitable for your voice and your budget and also how to record into Audacity with the perfect metering levels and then finally how to.

1. Download Nyquist Noise Gater plug-in (noisegate.ny) following this link: https://wiki.audacityteam.org/wiki/Nyquist_Effect_Plug-ins#Noise_Gate. It will take you to the download page.
2. Once you download Noisegate.ny file copy-paste it to C:Program Files (x86)AudacityPlug-Ins
3. Once Noisegate.ny file is in the correct folder, open Audacity.
4. Go to Tools -> Add / Remove Plug-ins
5. Find Noise Gate plug-in (noisegate.ny), select it and click enable, then click OK.

You now have noise gate plug-in installed and can use it from Effect menu.

How to use Noise Gate?

Measuring Room Tone

Before starting to work with Audacity Noise Gate (Noisegate.ny) you should measure your room tone. Knowing your room tone will help to set the correct threshold and level reduction.

To measure your room tone, simply press the record button and look at recording levels. The blue line on recording levels will inform you about what is the peak volume in your room. In the example below, it is somewhere around -39dB.

This information will help you to set a correct Gate Threshold later as you want to cut out unnecessary room noise without accidentally affecting vocals.

How to set Noise Gate settings?

Your default Noise Gate settings will probably look like this:

Low-Cut filter

Should you apply Low-Cut filter? It is not necessary because you can do the same using Equalizer and have more options.

Low-Cut filter allows to cut off frequencies below 10Hz or 20Hz which removes some unwanted noise.

If you are doing voice-over, you should be using EQ to remove anything below 60Hz anyway because the human voice doesn't go below 60Hz, and anything below this frequency threshold is noise. In the end, Low-Cut filter won't matter much, you might as well use it.

Gate frequencies above

You should leave this setting untouched. Leaving it at 0 will disable this setting and you should do just that. Gate frequencies above as name suggests cuts all the frequencies above a set threshold.

Audacity allows maximum value at 10kHz, making this setting almost unusable. Human voice may go as high as 20kHz, cutting major part of voice frequencies will render your audio useless.

According to Audacity Gate frequencies above parameter is used to reduce tape hiss which consists of higher frequencies. Considering you are unlikely to be using tape in this day and age it has become an artifact in the voice-over industry.

Level reduction

Level reduction is a very important setting for noise gate effect. It determines how much noise gate will reduce audio volume.

You can go from -100dB to 0dB on Audacity. In other DAWs you usually have an option to reduce volume by -inf which means you essentially mute it. Audacity is limited in these settings, but choosing -100dB or -infinity will most likely make no difference.

You may be tempted to insert -100dB value if you don't want any background noise in your recording. However, that would sound unnatural.

Consider that noise gate does not clean background noise from parts of your audio where you talk. Completely removing background noise in between words will make your audio sound choppy.

Now tv on my pc. If you do so, you will hear noise when the audio volume is above the set threshold, but audio will completely mute in between words making this unpleasant choppy effect.

Therefore, it is preferable to don't remove background noise completely. Audacity, by default, leaves it at -12dB. -10dB to -20dB is a good range for level reduction. It will leave some of the room tones and make your recording sound natural yet much cleaner.

Gate Threshold

Gate threshold is another key setting. It sets a threshold below which audio is toned down. For example, setting Gate threshold at -40dB with Level reduction of -15dB will decrease audio volume by 15dB for any sound that is below -40dB.

A correct gate threshold value will be different in every environment. Before determining gate threshold you should measure your room tone which we already talked about earlier. When you have your room tone and you know where it peaks determining gate threshold will be easy.

It is best to have gate threshold a tad bit higher than room tone. Room tone peaking at -40dB would require a gate threshold of at least -38dB. By selecting a higher gate threshold you make sure no unnecessary sound will be skipped by noise gate and allowed in your final recording.

However, setting gate threshold too high may cut out some of your voice, especially if you have a quiet recording. Hence, don't overdo it. I wouldn't try setting gate threshold any higher than -30dB.

Attack/Decay

Attack/Decay is another important setting in Noise gate. You will find it a bit disappointing on Audacity as it doesn't offer dedicated setting for Attack and Decay. Meaning that your Attack will be the same as Decay. This is a bit of a deal-breaker because normally you would not be setting Attack the same as Decay.

In noise gate Attack determines how fast gates open. Having it set at 100ms means it will take 100ms to open noise gate after audio volume goes above the set gate threshold. In other words, it works as a fade-in.

Noise gate will start to work immediately, but rather than instantly allowing sound to come through it is going to be a gradual process for 100ms at the end of which noise gate will stop working fully.

Setting higher Attack makes your audio sound a bit more natural because it allows a minor fade-in and you can't sense it easily. Abrupt noise gate will sound unnatural, however.

Still, Audacity allows a minimum Attack/Decay of 10ms which is high. Most DAWs allow to set Attack separately of Decay and allow to go as low as 0ms. An ideal Attack for voice over is somewhere around 1-3ms which is below what you can achieve with Audacity.

Usually, I would be setting Attack at 10ms with Audacity because that's as low as you can get, but because the same effect determines Decay you have to consider higher values. Setting Attack too high may cut out some of your wanted sounds.

Decay (on other DAWs it is more commonly called Release) determines how fast noise gate fades out. For example, if you have gate threshold set at -40dB and Decay at 100ms, once audio goes below -40dB it will take 100ms for noise gate to fully apply.

During this 100ms noise gate will gradually decrease audio levels until at the end of 100ms noise gate will be fully applied and audio levels will be reduced by what you have set at Level reduction.

Usually, I would have Decay set at somewhere around 100ms to 200ms. Having some Decay prevents noise gate from cutting wanted sounds. At the end of sentences, your voice may be at a lower level, hence setting Decay at low value would result in unfinished words. You want some Decay time to prevent unnatural cuts.

Also, Audacity Noise gate doesn't have Hold setting. Hold works similar to Decay, but it is not a gradual process as it is with Decay.

Now you can see why having Attack and Decay at the same value is such a bad option. Setting Attack too high can result in sentences missing the first few letters. On the other hand, setting Decay too low may result in abrupt cuts at the end of sentences.

With Audacity not offering Attack and Decay as separate parameters, I would set Attack/Decay somewhere in the middle of 100 to 150ms. It is not going to be perfect, at it will be too high as Attack and too low as Decay but there is no better option. You can play around to see what works the best for you.

Save Preset

This is a very useful option. Once you have your Noise Gate settings optimized you can press Manage button and then Save Preset to save your settings so you don't have to remember them later and go through the whole process over again.

Conclusion

Noise gate is an effect that enables you to reduce or cut out all audio that is below a set threshold volume.

The effect is especially useful when you have long voice recordings such as podcasts or book narrations. Without noise gate, you would have to manually remove any noise in between your words.

On the other hand, noise gate can't fully replace manual labor. You can tweak noise gate settings all you want, but removing noise by manually deleting is probably gonna give you better results.

That is why when dealing with short voice-overs such as commercials you might be better not using noise gate. It is when you have long recordings noise gate comes useful because manually removing noise will give you diminishing returns.

Here are some suggestions on how to record a voice over. Ready to land your next voice over job?

This is a fairly detailed step-by-step guide for creating a pro quality voice over using Audacity (the free audio software). The steps here will work for any mic, but you should use at least a decent USB mic like the Samson Q2U (which you can get for 59 dollarinis). That's what I will assume for the example here.

Of course if you want much higher quality, you can invest in a large diaphragm condenser mic that you plug into an audio interface unit. A Focusrite Scarlett Solo Studio Bundle (mic, interface and headphones).

Ready? Here we go.

1. Open Audacity (you can download that here)

Audacity is a free audio recording program that works on both Mac and Windows and is incredibly powerful - especially for a free program.

2. Make sure your mic is set up in Audacity

To do that, go to Edit/Preferences/Devices (choose the Samson mic (or interface box like 'Focusrite Scarlett') under 'Recording' and make sure it says 'mono' under 'channels.'

3. Click the 'Record' button (big red circle) in Audacity

A new track will appear when you hit the 'record' button and start recording.

4. Record your voiceover

Here are some tips for that:

• Use a pop filter if you have one. If you don't, you can make one quickly by stretching an old pair of nylon stockings over a wire hanger that you have shaped into a circle. But you can buy one for about $10 on Amazon - Auray Pop Filter.
• Record in as quiet a place as possible.
• Keep you mouth close to the mic (3-5 inches). Most of us record in spare rooms in our house, which means lots of echo-y, reverb-y room sound. And one quick fix to reduce that that you can apply immediately is simply to record close (that 3-5 inches I suggest) to the mic. I believe that this could be the most helpful bit of advice on how to record a voice over of everything in this post.
• Keep recording even in you make a mistake. I like to clap my hands or make some other quick, loud noise after a screw-up so that I'll see it on the track when I'm editing. Just make that mark and continue recording. You can cut the bad takes out during editing. I show how to do this in my post Quickly Fix Audio Recording Mistakes by Overdubbing, Part 2.
• Make sure the wave forms (blue blobs) are fairly large in the track. You don't want to over do it to where they go out to the edges and beyond. But if they are too quiet - not much more than what's on the center line - then you should turn up the input level* and start again until you get fat and chunky blobs. This may be the 2nd most important piece of advice for how to record a voice over!

* If you are using an interface unit to plug your mic in, you can turn the input level knob up on that. If you have a USB mic, go into your Windows Sound control panel (or System Preferences/Sound on a Mac), click on the Recording tab, select your mic, select Properties, then select the 'Level.' tab. Make sure the slider is at around the 85-90 percent mark. Sometimes Windows puts this level down to like 20% for some reason.

5. Hit the 'Stop' button when you're finished.

This is pretty self-explanatory. Just click the big yellowish square at the top of the scree.

6. Trim and cut.

Now find all the parts you want to cut out (bad takes, baby crying, phone ringing, etc.) by highlighting that bit of audio and simply hitting the 'delete' button on your computer keyboard. Leave some space at the beginning though. You'll need that to sample background noise for noise reduction in the next step.

7. Reduce the noise.

Once you're left with the parts you want to keep, it's time to reduce the ambient background noise. Usually this will be low-level computer drive noise, electronic buzz or hum, hiss from a USB mic, etc.

• Find a section (like the area before you started talking as I mentioned above) of the recording where you're NOT talking, but the mic was recording, and highlight that section. Make ABSOLUTELY SURE there are no voice or breath sounds in this selection.
• On the Effect dropdown menu, choose 'Noise Reduction.'
• In the Noise Reduction effect window, click 'Get Noise Profile.' The Noise Removal window will close. You've just told audacity what constitutes 'noise' by sampling 'just noise' from your selection.
• Select the entire audio recording (double-click on the audio).
• Open the Noise Reduction tool again, and click 'OK.' This applies noise reduction to the entire file based on that sample of 'just noise.'
• This will filter out the ambient noise and leave your voice alone (for the most part).

Audacity Voice Over Software

My current favorite noise reduction plugin is part of the Accusonus ERA bundle of vocal repair plugins. It's called the ERA Noise Remover.

8. Remove 'P-Pops'

Listen carefully to the recording in headphones. You'll likely have several 'p-pops' or 'plosives' as they are commonly called, caused when you say the letter P or B. Here is how to get rid of those (for more detail, see my post: How To Fix A 'P-Pop' In Your Audio With A Sound Editor.)

• Zoom in to very beginning of an offensive p-pop. I find that bad p-pops tend to look like the letter 'N' in the audio waveform. See pic below.

• Select just the 'N' part and then go to Effect/Equalization in Audacity.
• Create a curve on the horizontal line that starts sloping down to the left at 200 Hz. See pic below.

• Just click your mouse on the line wherever you want to create a drag-handle (4 or 5 spaced between 30Hz and 250Hz should do the trick). Then drag the 30Hz handle all the way down.

• Drag the next one to the right down but not as far, etc. Continue until your curve looks like the picture above.
• Then click 'OK' and listen to the result. The 'p' sound should sound more natural and less like an explosion of air. You'll also notice that the 'N' shape is much smaller.

This process can be very time consuming. But if you are willing to invest $6/month, you can SIGNIFICANTLY speed up the process of removing p-pops. Accusonus has a product that I now use every time I record my voice. Pro tools 9 compatible with yosemite. It's called the ERA Plosive Remover. CLICK HERE to find out more or to purchase it. You just add it as a plugin effect in Audacity.

9. Even out the volume level

Audacity Voice Over Software

There will almost certainly be a few peaks in your recording that are clearly louder than the rest. You'll want to even things up so that the audio is more consistent. The process is sometimes called 'compression.' (See my post: What Does Compression Mean In Audio Recording? for more on this).

Here is how to use the Compressor effect in Audacity.

• Select the entire audio file (double-click on the blue blob somewhere).
• Select Effect/Compressor.
• Set the sliders as follows: Threshold: -12 db, Noise Floor: -40 db, Ratio: 2:1, Attack Time: 0.2 secs, Decay Time: 1.secs.
• Also, make sure there is a check in the box marked 'Make-up Gain for 0dB after compressing.'
• Click 'OK.'

10. Now listen carefully through headphones, to all the audio

You may notice a few stray bits of unwanted noise in between the talking bits, so to fix those, just highlight them as you find them, and click the 'Silence' tool button in Audacity. See pic below.

11. Export your audio file

Lastly, save the audio in whatever format you need by selecting File/Export

44.1KHz and 16-bit wav files are standard 'CD quality' audio. You can also export the audio as mp3.

Hopefully that should give you an idea how to record a voice over, a professional sounding one, very quickly. For more in-depth info, check out our Audacity course, the Newbies Guide to Audio Recording Awesomeness.

Good luck.

Ken