Better default settings for Noise Reduction effect: 6, 6, 6

[petersampsonaudacity]

Your idea

NR default

The default settings in Audacity for Noise Reduction are 12, 6, 3

Suggested improved default

Greg Kozikowski (Koz), a long-standing Forum elf and ex Audacity Team member, often recommends 6, , ,6 as a better alternative

Problem to be solved

Koz is a professional sound engineer in Hollywood so I trust his recommendation in this regard very highly.

I have used Koz' settings many time to remove FM hiss from radio broadcasts and got excellent results.

Prior art

No response

Additional context

No response

[Paul-Licameli]

"Noise Reduction of the Beast" ! 😈

But I thought what is appropriate might depend on one's recording setup.

This is a recommendation for voiceover work in particular?

[petersampsonaudacity]

This is a recommendation for voiceover work in particular?

I have recommended it to users on your FB Audacity Voicover group Paul - and they seemed satisfied.

Personally I've used it for FM music broadcasts.

[KennyMacheka]

I'd like to take this up if no one else is?

[RayAsh37]

Hi @petersampsonaudacity , @LWinterberg
I have made the required changes and submitted a PR. Please review

[petersampsonaudacity]

Testing on W10 with @RayAsh37 's branch build:

1. This works fine for a Virgin install of this (3.3.0) branch build.

2. When upgrading from an earlier version
   a) any settings that the user made and (expected to keep) in the earlier version use of Noise Reduction are properly not overwritten by the new 6, 6, 6 default.
   b) However
   IF the user has not made any changes to the default settings in Noise Reduction when using it in earlier Audacity versions
   THEN Audacity overwrites the old 12, 6, 3 default with the new 6, 6, 6 default
   Both a) and b) are quite cunning, as users who have always used Audacity's default will now get Audacity's new default - but users who have carefully changed settings to suit them will get to retain their previous settings.

So this looks functionally good to me.

---

Aside

I do note that Noise Reduction, unlike other Audacity effects, has no Presets & Settings button to facilitate:
i) reset to factory default,
ii) user Presets settings to be saved and retrieved:

[petersampsonaudacity]

BTW
IF the user makes changes to the NR presets in an earlier version and later in an earlier version manually resets the settings to 12,6,3
THEN when this branch is launched Audacity does not overwrite the 12,6,3 with the new 6,6,6 default

So presumably Audacity has some hidden cunning way of knowing the that the default has never been overwritten.

[RayAsh37]

I believe it creates files storing all the user settings. So if the file exists, it just reads from it. Some other softwares that I have worked with (eg. Blender) have it where I can export the file and then install a new version and then read the file from the new version. But doing it manually is a bit cumbersome, so the auto-detection is pretty convenient. Or maybe Software Dev has just made me lazy😅😂

[petersampsonaudacity]

@LWinterberg do I assume correctly, Leo, that this will also need a code review before it can be pulled into master ?

[dozzzzer]

Verified

[petersampsonaudacity]

I've updated the alpha Reference Manual:

https://alphamanual.audacityteam.org/man/Noise_Reduction