Hacker News Reader

Comment by thenomad | Hacker News Reader

On the subject of "ums" - does anyone know if there's a tool out there to automatically remove ums and uhs from spoken audio?

Seems like it'd be a useful and comparatively doable problem to solve.

View on HN

Like @ndh2 has stated, train yourself to not do it. Otherwise, your spoken audio files will be fine, but your conversations in team meetings over webex or conference calls will still have it, and it would be annoying everyone else (if it's a lot) and you wouldn't know about it because no-one is going to tell you.

Also, if you start to edit the ums out, you will quickly get tired of wasting time on doing this, and would train yourself to not do it yourself. I went through this exercise after recording youtube screencasts that are 5 to 10 mins long, and wasting about 30 minutes editing out my ums and ahems.

This is good advice, but one question: why is the default assumption here that I'm the only person I ever record?

I'm pretty good at not um-ing too frequently (20 years of public speaking will do that), but I can't exactly require all my guests for podcasts or interviews, for example, first rigorously train themselves for months!

> why is the default assumption here that I'm the only person I ever record?

Because your question was in response to OPs statement regarding screenrecording, and in that, OP is talking about video and audio for recordings he/she does, not of group meetings.

> Whenever I need to document a particularly complex task or procedure, I record a 10 mins screencast and explain the process + show the steps

Source: OP.

Total digression, but I participate in Toastmasters and there is a role in every meeting known as the 'Ah-Counter'. Every time someone uses a filler like um, ah, er, like, and, etc. they ring the bell to bring it to the speaker's attention. It supports individuals in being mindful about what they're saying and the fillers they are using.

There's something funny about contrasting this idea and yours but I'm having trouble putting it into words. Something about technology rendering solid communication skills obsolete in a subset of cases

Sounds like we need to combine both ideas and create an ah-counter for videos instead of an ah-remover.

Train yourself not to do it. It's not that hard, and it will go a long way in improving your communication.

Record 30 seconds without ums. If you failed, do it again. Then increase the time. Stop if you fail to much/can't concentrate, try again tomorrow. Recording yourself is the perfect opportunity to train.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com