Remove background noises

The most common use for Strip Silence is simulation of the classic noise gate effect. When used on long recordings with numerous gaps—such as vocals or instrumental solos—you can obtain better results by setting a low threshold value. Background noise is removed, without affecting the main signal.

• For short percussive regions (drum loops), you can simulate time compression/expansion by simply altering the tempo.

• You can even quantize the individual segments in an audio recording.

Create segments of spoken recordings

You can use Strip Silence to divide long spoken passages into several convenient segments, like sentences, words, or syllables. For film synchronization or jingles, you can move or reposition the speech segments by simply dragging them around in the Tracks area.

Tempo changes allow you to simulate a time compression or expansion effect, as the syllables automatically move closer together, or farther apart.

Create segments for drum loops

Dividing drum loops into small segments is a good way to perfectly synchronize them. For example, in audio passages where the bass drum and snare are completely separate, you can often use Strip Silence to isolate each individual beat.

Optimize synchronization

Different computers, different synchronization sources (internal or SMPTE code), different tape machines, and—in theory—different samplers or hard disk recording systems will exhibit slight variations in clock speed. Changing just one component can lead to a loss of synchronization between recorded audio material and MIDI. This is particularly applicable to long audio regions.

This is another situation where the Strip Silence function can help, by creating several shorter audio regions, with more trigger points between the audio and MIDI events.

For example, you can use this method to roughly split up a whole audio file, and then divide the new regions, using different parameters. The new regions can then be processed again with the Strip Silence function.

Optimize files and regions

You can use Strip Silence to automatically create regions from an audio file that contains silent passages, such as a single vocal take that runs the length of a project. The unused regions or portions of the audio file can be deleted, saving hard disk space, and simplifying (file and) region management.

Use Strip Silence to extract audio files

Many sample library discs (CD or DVD) contain thousands of audio recordings stored as AIFF or WAV files. Strip Silence can be used to split these into individual regions, which can be used directly in the Tracks area. Regions can also be converted into individual audio files (samples), which can be used in the EXS24 mkII.