Trim silence in Garageband?

Tech Support
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1

I’ve been struggeling with this all morning: I’d like to trim silence parts in Garageband.

Here’s why:

I’m a teacher, and I’m currently marking essays. I thought I’d do something different today, so instead of typing my comments or writing on my iPad, I’ve decided to speak my comments while I read the essay. I think I might be saving som time doing it this way - when I get the hang of it.

So here’s my current workflow:
I have the student’s document on one side of my screen, and Garageband on the other. Then I start a recording and speak my comments. So far, so good.

So here’s my problem:
When I finish reading and speaking I have an audio file that lasts about 20 minutes, but I only speak half that time - in sections. So there are a lot of gaps with silence. I’d like to trim them without having to select them individually and deleting them and re-arranging the spoken bits manually.

Is there a way of getting Garageband to do that?

I’m doing it on my Mac right now, but a solution on iOS Garageband would also be fine.

I don’t want to pay for Ferrite (which has a feature that does exactly that) just yet because it’s the first time, I’m marking essays this way, and I don’t know if the students find it even remotely useful.

2

I know you asked for GarageBand, I don’t know in that app. I use TwistedWave for this purpose - https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/twistedwave/id408452636?mt=12

3

Thanks.

I’d like to wait with any paid software because I don’t know yet how the students will receive the audio feedback.

If they like it, I’m more than happy to pay for something that works. For now, I’m just trying to get this week’s work done a little easier. :slight_smile:

4

For macOS (you tagged both macOS and iOS for your question so it’s unclear which GarageBand you’re referring to) just use Audacity, which is free and contains a ‘Truncate Silence’ option.

1 Like
5

I’ve been using Mac OS primarily, but I’ve tried iOS to see if the editing was more intuitive - it wasn’t.

But I’ll definitely try out Audacity. I used that in some very ancient Windows says. Thanks!