When you record your podcast, interview, or audio lesson, you will definitely want to make it a professional information product.
In this article, we'll look at how Audacity will help us improve the quality of the recording - we'll remove unwanted fragments, adjust the volume, then make our recording positive and dynamic by adding background music.
In previous articles, the creation of MP3 ringtones for the phone and the technology for recording podcasts, interviews or audio lessons in Audacity were examined, the basics of work and some tools of this sound editor were studied, it is recommended to study these articles. So, we are taking the songs from http://taketones.com.
Improving Podcast Quality
All tracks and service information related to the podcast are saved as an AUP project, go to the File menu -> "Open ..." or use the keys Ctrl + O to open a previously created project.
Often, without the use of professional studio equipment, the recording may be too quiet or different parts of the soundtrack may sound at different volumes. To make the entire track sound equally loud and at the same time maintain quality, you can use the Compressor filter, which works in two ways, makes quiet fragments louder and sounds too loud make them quieter.
Select a podcast track in the editor window, as you can see, you want to make the track louder.
Go to the "Effects" menu and select "Compressor".
In the dialog box that appears, check the "Fit Gain ..." and "Peak Compression" checkboxes; you can leave the other settings as default and click "OK".
The sound of the track became much louder, which was reflected in the graph.
At the same time, extraneous sounds also became louder and more noticeable. Consider the example of rustle removal, and at the same time, save the required pauses in the conversation.
A very short extraneous sound is highlighted in the image below.
We define its duration and replace the section of the track that precedes it. Pay attention to the "Selection" panel, in this case the duration of the sound is shorter than 1 second and the duration of the selection is not displayed on the scale.
To enable the display of milliseconds, right-click in one of the panel fields and select "hh: mm: ss + milliseconds" from the drop-down list, then enable the "Duration" option.
Now, the duration of the selected area is precisely known. Select and copy exactly the same section immediately before the extraneous sound by pressing Ctrl + C. You can enter the duration of the selection from the keyboard in the corresponding field on the "Selection" panel.
Select the replaced fragment again and adjust its duration.
Press Ctrl + V to replace the fragment.
As you can see in the picture above, extraneous noise has disappeared, if everything is done correctly, when listening to the sound will be completely natural.
Add music to a podcast
Go to the "File" menu, select "Import" -> "Sound file" and import the music into the project. The music file will be added as a separate audio track.
Select extra fragments and delete them, or copy and duplicate music fragments if you need to extend the playback of music. For example, in this case, the music track is 10 seconds longer than the podcast.
This is to ensure that music playback starts 5 seconds before the conversation starts and continues for 5 seconds after it ends.
To shift the playback of tracks, use the "Move" tool .
To do this, activate the instrument and shift the sound track to record the conversation, in this case so that it starts playing 5 seconds after the music track starts playing.
In this case, the music volume should be slightly reduced precisely while playing a track with a recorded conversation.
The Envelope Change tool will help us with this .
Activate the instrument and click in any place on the music track. In this case, control points will appear on the image of the track, capturing them with the tool, you can arbitrarily change the sound volume of the selected fragment of the track.
Practice with this tool, in any case, if you do not like the changes made, you can cancel them by pressing Ctrl + Z.
Try to achieve something like this in the image below.
We see that playing music for 5 seconds gradually fades and continues throughout the podcast at low volume. When the conversation ends, the music becomes louder again.
In this article, we'll look at how Audacity will help us improve the quality of the recording - we'll remove unwanted fragments, adjust the volume, then make our recording positive and dynamic by adding background music.
In previous articles, the creation of MP3 ringtones for the phone and the technology for recording podcasts, interviews or audio lessons in Audacity were examined, the basics of work and some tools of this sound editor were studied, it is recommended to study these articles. So, we are taking the songs from http://taketones.com.
Improving Podcast Quality
All tracks and service information related to the podcast are saved as an AUP project, go to the File menu -> "Open ..." or use the keys Ctrl + O to open a previously created project.
Often, without the use of professional studio equipment, the recording may be too quiet or different parts of the soundtrack may sound at different volumes. To make the entire track sound equally loud and at the same time maintain quality, you can use the Compressor filter, which works in two ways, makes quiet fragments louder and sounds too loud make them quieter.
Select a podcast track in the editor window, as you can see, you want to make the track louder.
Go to the "Effects" menu and select "Compressor".
In the dialog box that appears, check the "Fit Gain ..." and "Peak Compression" checkboxes; you can leave the other settings as default and click "OK".
The sound of the track became much louder, which was reflected in the graph.
At the same time, extraneous sounds also became louder and more noticeable. Consider the example of rustle removal, and at the same time, save the required pauses in the conversation.
A very short extraneous sound is highlighted in the image below.
We define its duration and replace the section of the track that precedes it. Pay attention to the "Selection" panel, in this case the duration of the sound is shorter than 1 second and the duration of the selection is not displayed on the scale.
To enable the display of milliseconds, right-click in one of the panel fields and select "hh: mm: ss + milliseconds" from the drop-down list, then enable the "Duration" option.
Now, the duration of the selected area is precisely known. Select and copy exactly the same section immediately before the extraneous sound by pressing Ctrl + C. You can enter the duration of the selection from the keyboard in the corresponding field on the "Selection" panel.
Select the replaced fragment again and adjust its duration.
Press Ctrl + V to replace the fragment.
As you can see in the picture above, extraneous noise has disappeared, if everything is done correctly, when listening to the sound will be completely natural.
Add music to a podcast
Go to the "File" menu, select "Import" -> "Sound file" and import the music into the project. The music file will be added as a separate audio track.
Select extra fragments and delete them, or copy and duplicate music fragments if you need to extend the playback of music. For example, in this case, the music track is 10 seconds longer than the podcast.
This is to ensure that music playback starts 5 seconds before the conversation starts and continues for 5 seconds after it ends.
To shift the playback of tracks, use the "Move" tool .
To do this, activate the instrument and shift the sound track to record the conversation, in this case so that it starts playing 5 seconds after the music track starts playing.
In this case, the music volume should be slightly reduced precisely while playing a track with a recorded conversation.
The Envelope Change tool will help us with this .
Activate the instrument and click in any place on the music track. In this case, control points will appear on the image of the track, capturing them with the tool, you can arbitrarily change the sound volume of the selected fragment of the track.
Practice with this tool, in any case, if you do not like the changes made, you can cancel them by pressing Ctrl + Z.
Try to achieve something like this in the image below.
We see that playing music for 5 seconds gradually fades and continues throughout the podcast at low volume. When the conversation ends, the music becomes louder again.
It remains to select "File" -> "Export ..." in the main menu and save your information product in the desired format, for example, to MP3.
