You can measure noise floor (room tone) in Audacity by recording your environment without extrinsic noises. When recording noise floor make sure there are no unusual background noises and keep your audio recording levels at the usual settings.

Here’s how you measure your noise floor in Audacity step by step:

1. Record in a quiet room for ~5s
2. Play the recording back
3. Observe playback level
4. The highest point on the playback level is your noise floor

I am using Audacity in this example, but any DAW will be able to measure your noise floor and the same principles apply.

Knowing your noise floor will be important when applying such effects as noise gate or noise reduction.

Audacity is a free audio editing software that supports many different plug-ins and allows you to set it up the way you like.

In this article, I will show you how you can download and install different types of plug-ins in Audacity.

These are the plugins that Audacity supports:

• Nyquist Plug-ins
• Module Plug-ins
• VST Plug-ins
• LADSPA Plug-ins
• LV2 Plug-ins

LV2 Plug-ins require compiling the source code to install them into Audacity.

How to install Nyquist plug-ins in Audacity?

1. Download Nyquist plug-in from here
2. Copy-paste plug-in to Audacity\Plug-Ins folder
3. In Audacity go to Tools->Add/Remove Plug-ins
4. Find the plug-in you downloaded and click enable

How to install VST plug-ins in Audacity?

1. Download VST plug-ins from here
2. Copy-paste plug-in to Audacity\Plug-Ins folder
3. In Audacity go to Tools->Add/Remove Plug-ins
4. Find the plug-in you downloaded and click enable

How to install Nyquist, VST plug-ins in Audacity? (with images)

Find the plug-in you like and download it to the “C:\Program Files (x86)\Audacity\Plug-Ins” folder. Some plug-ins might be no longer available and download links may not work and some links will take you to other websites from which you can download the plug-in.

If you aren’t allowed to download to the Audacity folder due to an administrative issue, then download it anywhere onto your computer and copy-paste the plug-in file into the “C:\Program Files (x86)\Audacity\Plug-Ins” folder or a respective folder in your computer.

Once you have it in the correct folder, open Audacity and go to Tools menu. Press “Add/ Remove Plug-ins“. Find the plug-in you downloaded and click enable.

Now you will find the plug-ins on Effect menu.

How to install LADSPA plugins in Audacity?

• Donwload LADSPA plug-ins here.
• Install LADSPA in “C:\Program Files (x86)\Audacity\Plug-Ins” folder
• In Audacity go to Tools->Add/Remove Plug-ins
• Enable LADSPA plug-ins that you wanted

In download page you have an option to either download windows or mac version. The files will be named:

“[v2.3.0] Audacity LADSPA plugins for Windows – Installer” – for Windows

or

“[v2.3.0] Audacity LADSPA plugins for Mac – ZIP” for Mac

90 LADSPA plug-ins will be installed simultaneously using LADSPA plug-in installer but you can choose which plug-ins you want to enable in Audacity.

How to install modules in Audacity?

• Add a module file to “C:\Program Files (x86)\Audacity\modules” folder
• In Audacity go to Edit->Preferences->Modules
• Select your module and choose enabled
• Restart Audacity

You can read more about Audacity modules here