Trim, Master and Align
Two tools on the show page work on plain files, with no transcript and no episode: Trim files…
and Master a file…. What they write goes in your show’s folder, in Trimmed and Mastered,
unless you choose somewhere else. Esc leaves a tool.
Trim files
Trim finds the stretches where everybody was quiet and takes them out of every track at once, so the tracks stay in sync and nobody gets clipped mid-breath because someone else happened to be talking.
What you’re trimming
Trim files… asks for your recordings: pick one audio file per person, or an Audition session
(.sesx) or Reaper project (.rpp). You can also drop them on the screen.
- Separate recordings are listed with their length. Lead-in offset shifts one that started recording early or late, in seconds; leave it at 0 for tracks recorded together, or use Align tracks… to find it by ear.
- A session lists every track in it, and you tick the ones that are voices. Each row says how long it is and how much of it is silent. A track that can’t be used says why and can’t be ticked.
The session you opened is never changed. The trimmed files, and a new session if you ask for one, are written beside it.
Tracks in several clips. A track the session holds as several clips (retakes, a stop and restart, or an edit already made) is left unticked, and the screen says so. Use these tracks anyway joins each into one file as it trims, with silence filling the gaps so it stays in sync. Several clips often means the session has already been edited, and trimming it again re-cuts silence that was already cut. If they’re takes, this is what it’s for.
Click Continue to Trim → when the list is right.
Settings
Preset at the top sets every control on the screen. Ensemble and Interview come with Soundmancer, and yours are listed under them. An asterisk means you’ve changed something since you picked it.
- Save as new… keeps what’s on screen under a name. That’s how to change one that comes with Soundmancer: edit it and save it as your show.
- Save changes saves over one of your own, after asking. Delete removes one of yours.
- Set as default opens Trim on that preset from then on.
| Setting | What it does |
|---|---|
| Silence threshold | Anything quieter counts as silence. −44 dB to start. Raise it toward 0 to catch more; lower it if the room’s hum is being treated as speech. |
| Shortest gap to cut | Gaps shorter than this stay, so the conversation still breathes. |
| Shortest real speech | How long a sound must be to count as speech rather than a click. |
| Bridge blips shorter than | A chair creak or mic pop in the middle of a silence won’t stop the gap being cut. |
| Output sample rate | Leave empty to match your recordings, or set 48000 for a video project. |
Three more are off unless you turn them on:
- Gate each track between words quiets each track between words. Skip it if you already gate in your editor.
- Match speech loudness across tracks brings everyone’s speech toward the same level, so voices sit together while you edit. On noisy or uneven recordings it can push the wrong way, so listen to a preview first.
- Reduce background noise works on hum, hiss, fans and room tone under the speech. The two choices are On-device AI, the stronger one and the place to start, which took about 29 dB of noise off a recording with a fan running, and Classic, the gentler one, which has settings you can tune and suits mild, steady hiss; pushed hard it can sound watery. Whichever you use, render a preview and listen.
Preview
Listen before you run a whole episode. Set a Window start and Window end (90, 1:30 or
1:02:03; 30 to 90 seconds is plenty) and it renders a Before and an After. On Before, each
cut is shaded; on After, each join is a line. Hover either for its length.
Below them, the share removed and a list of long cuts to check. Clicking one takes the After player to the join, which is the thing to listen to: whether the splice sounds natural. Warn about cuts longer than sets what counts as long (10 seconds to start).
Submit
Submit asks what the run should write:
| Option | What you get |
|---|---|
| Output folder | Where the trimmed files go. |
| Render a mixdown | All tracks mixed to one WAV. Mastering starts from this. |
| Create a new Audition session / Create a new Reaper project | A session with the trimmed tracks, next to them. |
| Split into clips | Under each session: breaks each track into clips at the longer pauses, for easier editing. No audio is removed. |
| Master it when the trim finishes | Trims, mixes and masters in one go. It asks for the Episode title, and optionally the number, year and a chapter file. |
Results
How much came out, a table for each track, and every file written, each with Show to find it. Master this episode → takes the mixdown straight to Master. ← Back to Trim lets you change a setting and run it again.
Master a file
Master a file… asks for one finished mix and opens Master on it. Everything about Master, from the targets to chapters, is on Exporting and mastering.
Align
For tracks that didn’t start recording at the same moment. If everyone hit record together, you don’t need it. Open it from Episode > Align tracks… with an episode open, or Align tracks… in Trim.
Each person is a lane. Find a moment everyone shares (a clap is ideal), then drag lanes sideways until it lines up.
| Do this | To |
|---|---|
| Drag a waveform | Move that track in time. |
| Drag the colored strip at a lane’s left | Move the lane up or down the stack. |
| Right-drag anywhere | Move the view. |
| Ctrl + scroll | Zoom in and out around the pointer. |
| Scroll over the names | Make the lanes taller or shorter. |
| Click | Move the playhead. |
| Space | Play or pause. |
| S / M on a lane | Solo or mute it. |
| The knob on a lane | Turn that track up or down. It scales the waveform too, so a quiet clap is easier to see. |
| Speed, beside play | 0.5× to 2×, without stopping. |
Finding the clap. Press play and watch the playhead. When you hear the clap, that spike is it. Solo one voice to check it on its own. Then drag each other lane until their spikes stack up. The waveforms get sharper as you zoom in, so a clap an hour into a session is still easy to place.
What you hear is the recordings themselves at their new positions. Several mics in one room hear the same voice a few milliseconds apart, so with everyone playing it can sound hollow. Solo one voice for a clean listen.
Done saves it (in Trim, Done → Trim).