Can you shorten the dead air in a recording without editing every gap?
You recorded a spoken explanation, but there are long gaps where you stopped to think. Before uploading it to an AI editor, Audacity's existing Truncate Silence effect is worth trying. It finds quiet passages and shortens them automatically. With audio selected, the manual puts it under Effect → Special → Truncate silence. Duration decides how long a quiet passage must last to count; Truncate to decides how much remains. Those are separate choices, so you don't have to squeeze every breath out of the recording. I'd try a copy of one short section first, including the quietest sentence. Choose a threshold above the background noise but below that speech, then listen across the cuts. If noise and quiet speech overlap, the manual warns there may be no usable threshold between them. Don't keep raising it until the pauses disappear. For an interview recorded on separate microphones, select the related tracks together and leave Truncate tracks independently off so they stay aligned. Anything timed to the recording afterward needs checking too. This is a documented editing option, not a comparison I've tested. I'd use it for a spoken update with distracting gaps; I'd leave a deliberate pause in a family story alone.
Comments
I'd be more cautious with a customer testimonial than a solo spoken update. Imagine an interviewer asking ‘Would you recommend it?’ and a long pause before ‘Yes, for a small team.’ Cutting the gap could make the endorsement sound more immediate. The pause doesn't prove the customer was reluctant, but removing it still changes how we hear the answer. I'd send the customer the final clip, including the question, and ask whether it fairly represents what they meant before publishing it. That's an editing practice I'd use, not a claim about an Audacity fault. Permission to use the recording wouldn't settle whether this particular cut tells the same story.
For a recording that teaches someone how to do something, I'd listen while actually following the instructions before cutting the gaps. ‘Fold the left corner to the centre’ takes longer to do than to say. A pause that sounds empty at the editing desk may be where the listener catches up. Keep an unshortened copy, and try the edited version without looking at a written guide. If you have to keep reaching for Pause, I'd put some of that time back. A shorter recording isn't much help if it makes the person learning feel rushed.
Don't grade the edit by minutes removed. Imagine a recording that explains how to fill in a form: the listener may need the gap to find the box you've just named. I'd listen to the shortened version while actually doing the task, without watching the waveform. If I have to keep pausing or winding back, I'd restore some space. That's a check I'd try, not a result I've measured. A brisker speaker isn't much of a favour if the listener inherits all the stopping.