Cleaning audio clips
Sound Editor lets you remove noise common to analog audio sources such as records and tapes. You can also enhance your audio clip in many ways, including adjusting the equalization or bass, brightening the sound, or applying “de‑clicking” effects to clean up audio recorded from scratchy vinyl LPs.
Note: When previewing the effects applied to your audio clip, you can select the Bypass option, which lets you preview the audio clip without the effects. This is helpful if you want to compare how the audio clip sounds with and without the effect.
To clean audio clips:
1 Select the portion of the audio clip that you want to clean.
Tip: Because the cleaning effects are “layered” on top of each other as you apply them, we recommend that you play the enhanced audio clip each time you apply an effect, and adjust it before applying another effect.
2 On the Clip Editor toolbar, click Clean up Audio.
3 Choose any of the following commands:
Tip: You can also right-click the selection on the waveform to apply an effect.
n Clean: Helps remove noise typically found in recordings from vinyl records. Apply settings in any one or more of the following areas:
n Declicker (Intensity): The intensity of distinct clicks
n Decrackler (Intensity): The intensity of “crackling” sounds common to records
n Denoiser (Threshold): The threshold of hiss and rumble
n Noise (Intensity): The intensity of hiss and rumble
n Enhancer: Lets you enhance sound in one of the following areas:
n Bass: Select this option to enhance the bass.
n Excite: Select this option to make the sound more bright.
n Equalizer (10-band) with Master Volume: Lets you boost or cut the amplitude (volume) for ten bands of sound frequencies. The Equalizer effect also includes a master volume control to let you increase or decrease overall sound output level. To link the left and right stereo channels for master volume control, select Link channels.
You can choose any of the following presets:
n Custom: Select this option if you want to adjust the frequencies manually. Working with custom presets is mostly trial‑and‑error, unless you know the frequencies of the sounds you want to adjust. It may be easier to notice your changes when adjusting one frequency at a time.
n Reset: Select this option if you want to reset the frequencies to the default values.
n Attenuate: Reduces the volume of the middle of the wave.
n +Bass: Increases the volume of low frequency sounds.
n +Treble: Increases the volume of high frequency sounds.
n +Voice: Increases the volume of human voices.
n Noise Reduction: Lets you minimize persistent background noises in audio recordings to improve the overall quality of the recording. For example, you can minimize the sound of wind blowing against a microphone in order to hear a speaker's voice more clearly. For more information, see
To apply Noise Reduction to a clip.
To apply Noise Reduction to a clip
1 In the Project View, select the clip you want. If you want to clean only a section of the clip, in the Clip Editor, select the portion of the audio clip.
2 On the Clip Editor toolbar, click Clean up Audio > Noise Reduction.
3 In the Noise Reduction dialog box, click the Select Noise button in the Step 1 area.
4 In the waveform area, drag across a section of the waveform that includes only the noise that you want to remove (does not include audio that you want to enhance), and click the Create Noise Profile button.
5 In the Step 2 area, preview the audio by choosing the Preview Audio or Preview Noise option and clicking the Preview button.
6 Adjust any of the following settings:
n Reduction: Specifies the amount of noise reduction. Higher values remove more noise, but can also remove overlapping frequencies in the audio that you want to keep, so choose a value that provides optimal results.
n Sensitivity: Specifies the frequency range for the noise sample. Lower values match the noise profile sample more closely; higher values extend the range. Previewing with the Preview Noise option selected can help you determine an optimal Sensitivity setting.
n Smoothing: Specifies the amount of smoothing used to compensate for unevenness in the noise-reduced audio. Higher values produce smoother audio, but can reduce clarity.
See also: