Auto Noise Reduction and (after that) Volume (dB) Amplification

Question

For podcast broadcasts, we have to edit half an hour of audio recordings 8-10 times a month. Each edit takes more than an hour.

The most time-consuming things are noise reduction, amplifying the low-pitched parts, and truncating sound gaps (if longer than 1 second).

We do all of this manually in Audacity (MacOS). But I feel like we're doing things manually that should be automatic. Despite a lot of research, I couldn't find a way to do all this automatically.

Is there a way? At the very least, a method to automate some of the work would do just fine.

Answer 1

TL;DR: Gates and Compressors.

Apply a Noise Gate to silence dead sections and then add a Compressor to make the result a reasonably consistent volume.

Both of these tools are included as standard in the "Effects" menu of Audacity.

The gate will automatically switch off the sound when it's below a given level (threshold), and the compressor will automatically turn the volume down for the loud parts and back up for the quiet parts to even out the output.

You'll need to play with the settings for each recording, but that might take 5 or 10 minutes instead of the hour you're spending now.

I suggest you play with them to get used to how they work and find out what all the controls do before you use them in proper work.