Background Noise

[Leachim]

Hi

I am new to this one - I have a 15 min recording of Bird Song recorded in the 70's.
There is hum and noise in the background - would it be possible to post a short wav file here for someone to listen what I am meaning ?

Thanks

Mike

[lpdeluxe]

If you are using Cool Edit Pro or Adobe Audition, record your bird songs into the computer, then call up your recording in the Edit View. Find a stretch that has no sound other than the hum/noise, highlight it, and go to Effects/Noise Reduction/Noise Reduction and click the button that says "Load Profile From Selection". After that processes, hit Control/A to select the entire length of the recording, then Effects/Noise Reduction/Noise Reduction and hit Enter or click on OK. Some experimentation may be needed to get rid of the noise without losing the bird song components. For more on the subject, check out the manual: http://www.alfors.com/Ruzne/cep2man.pdf

[chrisharris]

Originally Posted by Leachim

would it be possible to post a short wav file here for someone to listen what I am meaning ?

Yeah, what LP said.

and if you're looking for a place to post short wave files online, you can do it in the COLLABORATIONS forum here: www.recordingproject.com .

Be careful with the noise/hiss reduction feature of CEP...it can totally ruin a recording, but used properly, it can work miracles.

[Leachim]

>Be careful with the noise/hiss reduction feature of CEP...it can totally ruin a recording, but used properly, it can work miracles<

OK, Thanks

I did what LP said, and it made a difference.

I have posted the old file with noise to

http://www.a5star.co.uk/background.wav

You should be able to "Save As" to download it.

Am curious as to the best settings though.....

Cheers

Mike

[chrisharris]

http://www.nowhereradio.com/artists/...=1698&alid=601

Give it a listen and lemme' know if you think it's too swirly sounding.

[Leachim]

Hey, sounds good - you must post me the settings

However it does sound a "little" mechanical - perhaps a -small- amount of background ought to be there to give an impression of ambience ??

Well done

Mike

[chrisharris]

It's a super easy one. I used 100%, so maybe go with 75%...and change the decay rate as in the pic.

Take care, and good luck.

[Leachim]

OK, getting there....

I dont seem to have the bottom box in my version and the colored line is not flat

See what you think

Cheers

Mike

[chrisharris]

Originally Posted by Leachim

OK, getting there....

I dont seem to have the bottom box in my version and the colored line is not flat

the only reason mine was flat is b/c I just opened it to take the pic for this thread.

Anyway, yeah...you've got the right idea. How's it sound?

[Leachim]

Got it

I cut it to 20db and used about 80% reduction - its not -perfect- but it is as good as it is gonna get - Thanks

I am missing the "Spectral Decay" box at the bottom tho .... any ideas ?

[lpdeluxe]

Not exactly a propos of your last post, but the noise reduction is not a magic bullet. Like everything else relating to digital audio it is a tool that rewards experimentation and patience. A person here brought me some tapes made from a Radio Shack telephone mic onto a cheap cassette recorder on long distance calls during which he interviewed his parents in Kentucky. During much of the tape it was not obvious that someone was speaking! After LOTS of trials, EQ, re-trials, and I don't remember what all, we got an acceptible result where it sounded like a human being speaking in intelligible English.

Don't think you'll get it the first time. It took me 3 evenings until this person (a retired history professor) finally found in another person what he thought **I** was, to wit, a surrogate graduate student who would do all the hard stuff for him for him for free! I am proud of the fact that I didn't save any of the work I did, or he'd be going around town explaining to everyone about how HE cleaned up the tapes...

But I digress. Give me music any day.

[lpdeluxe]

Leachim, I was just over at the Adobe Audition forums reading about the new feature in 1.5 which allows selecting areas from the Spectral View and cloning the other frequencies around it. Of course, you need AA 1.5 in order to do it, but it might be a more efficient way of eliminating your noise than the Noise Reduction facility.

[Leachim]

Thanks

Although I noticed this box in Chris Harris's screen pic (above) which isn't in my screen pic

What does Spectral Decay Rate do ? It seems to be located below his Transition Width window, and not mine ?

?

[chrisharris]

Originally Posted by Leachim

Thanks

Although I noticed this box in Chris Harris's screen pic (above) which isn't in my screen pic

What does Spectral Decay Rate do ? It seems to be located below his Transition Width window, and not mine ?

?

I'm using Adobe Audition 1.0. It may not be in CEP.

[lpdeluxe]

Leachim, what version of what software are you using? Cool Edit comes in Pro 1.X, 2.x, 2000, SE, and Adobe Audition comes in 1.0 & 1.5. Each has different features.

[Leachim]

Originally Posted by lpdeluxe

Leachim, what version of what software are you using? Cool Edit comes in Pro 1.X, 2.x, 2000, SE, and Adobe Audition comes in 1.0 & 1.5. Each has different features.

I am using CE 2
I now understand that Adobe took 'em over and updated it.
Still would like to know what the Spectral function does tho.....

[lpdeluxe]

It's new to Adobe Audition 1.5. I haven't tried it but the DVD tutorial shows how to remove a cough from a classical performance recording. It'll be useful for certain things but probably tedious if you have a lot of audio to clean up. It has the advantage over the ordinary noise reduction that you can zero in on a specific sound. My current project has been plagued with foot "tromps" in awkward places, for example, and I think it would have worked had I had this function to get rid of them. Instead I crossfaded into alternate takes, which also worked, but you don't probably don't have that option with your birdsongs.

I don't know how far you have gotten into reducing the noise on your audio, but you might try to analyze where the noise lies in the frequency spectrum and use a (probably) highpass filter to scrape it off. Look at a section of your audio in the Spectal Display window and see if you can identify the range of the noise. Then go to Effects/Filters/Scientific and then specify the shape of the filter you want to apply.

There are other strategies as well but they all require a somewhat inventive and exploratory spirit. It might be useful to save a copy of your originals in case your "enhancements" get too far afield. It's time consuming but rewarding.

As a final thought, the link to the manual I posted above covers Cool Edit Pro 2.0.