Using Audacity to clean client audio recordings
Not all of our clients want to use professional voiceover artists for their projects, and would prefer to send us audio recorded in-house from their people. When that happens, usually the audio recording has a small amount of background noise. To make the audio sound cleaner and more professional, we process it in the free audio editing software Audacity. Here’s how you remove noise from your voiceover audio.
First, if you haven’t already done so, download and install the free program Audacity. Once you’ve installed and opened it, open the sound file you wish to clean.
If you pull down the bottom of the sound frame, you can see the little soundwaves in the places where there are pauses. You might not be able to hear it in the file, but that does affect the sound quality of the voiceover parts.
The easiest way is to select a portion of the sound file that is “silent”.
Next, select Noise Reduction from the Effects menu.
Then, select Get Noise Profile. The popup box will disappear once it’s clicked.
Then select the whole sound file by double clicking anywhere on the waveform, and open the Noise reduction box again. This time, select the OK button at the bottom. This will strip out all the background noise from the whole audio track. You can experiment with the sliders if taking out all the background noise distorts the voiceover too much.
This is a simple way to make any of your audio sound better, and check out the rest of our blog for more tips on improving the quality of any of your elearning assets!
