If the volume of a recording is below a defined threshold (or Autodetect),
the Audionoise will be replaced by a recorded roomtone using automatic Crossfades.
Or like this: Vol < Threshold => replace Roomtone with X-Fades
Why would someone want that?
We are producing Audiobooks (singlevoice, straight reading), this means the Voice is always solo.
One can always hear the slightest noise or movement of the narrator.
At the moment we are using an Expander to get rid of the noises but the outcome is not perfect.
A collegue has written a batch process himself for Protools automating exactly this process.
So, basically it`s like a gate, but instead of dropping to Digital Zero it “drops” to roomone. P.S.: The problem with Digital Zero is, besides sounding awful, that some BT-Headset loose connection to headphones.
Are you aware that WaveLab Silence processor, has an option to insert custom background noise? In short, this is exactly what you request, except this is not automated: you have to select yourselves the region to select, one by one.
This being said, your idea could indded be interesting to add to the Auto Split function, that detects silence periods.
No one really want to select regions afters each sentence one by one in an 15h Audiobook.
your idea could indded be interesting to add to the Auto Split function, that detects silence periods.
Please do. It´s a lifesaver…ok, ok, at least it saves huge amounts of time.
This feature would fit well in the auto split feature, where there is already a feature to zero-silence regions under a certain threshold.
I can’t promise anything, but this request is firmly stored in the request database.
just to add a note on that, using the lane & ducking is the wavelab equivalent of protools’ putting the strip silenced & edited audio on top of a roomtone track,
which means you don’t have to constantly tighten roomtone all the time when going through
didn’t really work for that use case in previous versions of wavelab, but as now you can specify gaps (or not) & x fade times, it works extremely well, and I use it daily
Alex, I would be really interested how you implement this in your workflow…maybe you could supply some screenshots?
For us this has to be fully automatable as we produce full lengths autobooks somtimes with 100 chapters and up to 40h playtime. It would not be feasable to manually create a montage for every chapter to do this.
yep its automated, its awesome, put all the files in, auto split (Strip silence) go have a coffee, put your roomtone in, setup your ducker tool (note the blue and green icons on tracks 1&2) and your away.
just knocked up a test file for your screenshot, with some old material
you need 2 tracks (not a track and a lane, sorry)
right mouse click on the roomtone track, “enable ducking controls” link the “source” to the voice track, go into the ducker settings, and adjust to get it right (use clip gain to get the room tone to match if it doesn’t already) and it just does it. if you work with the same studios regularly you can save the ducker preset.
we don’t split our montages into chapters, we use the CD markers to split into chapters in the montage, and generate our masters, WL is one of the few DAW’s where we can generate the masters (and proofing mp3s) in the background while working on other projects if the computer has the power.
however a 40hr would probably be split into 2, our longest 78hr one this year was split into 4, and over 4 WL editors using the same presets, system & master channel. plus everyone has to have RX and Clarity VX Pro
