Strip Silence

[bayswater]

It looks like Strip Silence is designed to deal with audio that is essentially background noise. It doesn't seem to to do anything with audio that has stretches of digital zero (which happens a lot when someone sends me tracks padded out to ensure proper sync. How would you remove the all zeros short of editing a zillion splices? And how do you interpret the attack parameter in this command? The double negative in the description is giving me some doubt that I understand how it works.

[wvandyck]

Digital zero in bounced tracks is easily removed with the default settings.

Trial and error is needed to get the right balance for preserving (attack) and cutting sound (release). Crossfades are always needed no matter what settings I use.

[bayswater]

Thanks. I've managed to get the attack right, or the release right, but not both at the same time. If I keep the attack, it seems to remove the tail of the end of the soundbite. If I manage to keep a few samples after the end of the bite the initial samples of the attack disapper. Will keep trialing and erroring.

Question: if I find a setting that keeps a few sample of digital zero at the start and end of each soundbite, what would a cross fade add? Are you saying that I can't get them both perfect, so I'll have to crossfade one or the other with the silence before or after the soundbite?

[stubbsonic]

Looks like the Strip Silence feature has changed a little since I last used it.

I usually would just get the threshold set right, then select all the soundbites to edge edit en masse. I'd also do a custom fade-in & fade-out, then apply those fades en masse as well. Works well.

[bayswater]

Looks like the Strip Silence feature has changed a little since I last used it.

I usually would just get the threshold set right, then select all the soundbites to edge edit en masse. I'd also do a custom fade-in & fade-out, then apply those fades en masse as well. Works well.

That's what I remember from a long time ago. I guess you can still do that -- just mass drag the left and right boundaries a few clicks and do the fades. In the current case, moving the boundaries a bit of digital silence at each end of the resulting soundbites, so I assume I need any fades.

[magicd]

I use DP almost daily for dialog editing. I don't use strip silence. I use the I-beam tool to cut the breaths and dead space. Once done that I use Set Soundbite Gap to bring all the phrases to a uniform distance from each other. I then go through and insert extra space between sentence breaks. Select to End has been a a killer tool for this. Once I've got all my timing I use smooth audio edits and insert room noise. Then bounce. Works great for me.

Dave

[wvandyck]

Question: if I find a setting that keeps a few sample of digital zero at the start and end of each soundbite, what would a cross fade add? Are you saying that I can't get them both perfect, so I'll have to crossfade one or the other with the silence before or after the soundbite?

With a percussive track with one voice, like a kick, I can get pretty close, but still hear a pop or click here and there. With all selected, adding 3ms fade before and after takes care of that.

[bayswater]

I use DP almost daily for dialog editing. I don't use strip silence. I use the I-beam tool to cut the breaths and dead space. Once done that I use Set Soundbite Gap to bring all the phrases to a uniform distance from each other. I then go through and insert extra space between sentence breaks. Select to End has been a a killer tool for this. Once I've got all my timing I use smooth audio edits and insert room noise. Then bounce. Works great for me.

Dave

Dave, with soundscape projects, that's similar to what I would do, but I'm dealing with a lot of tracks with thousands of short bursts of sound that someone has padded out with silence so they are all synced and the same length. I was looking for a quick way to remove a couple of Gbytes of silence from the project files.

[bayswater]

Question: if I find a setting that keeps a few sample of digital zero at the start and end of each soundbite, what would a cross fade add? Are you saying that I can't get them both perfect, so I'll have to crossfade one or the other with the silence before or after the soundbite?

With a percussive track with one voice, like a kick, I can get pretty close, but still hear a pop or click here and there. With all selected, adding 3ms fade before and after takes care of that.

OK, thanks. It's a quick operation and looks like it won't hurt anything where it isn't needed and help if it is.

[Prime Mover]

"Strip Silence" - what you hear right after a really bad live porny show.