Noisy Vocal Track - any methods to improve?

[mulch]

I have a poorly recorded vocal track that has a constant hiss in it. It is noticable when the singer is singing but more noticable when they are not. The hiss remains at a constant frequency and volume throughout the track.

Are there methods to reduce the hiss with minimal impact on the vocals?

Notch filter? Plugin? Other?

Any advice is greatly appreciated from this rookie.
thx

[AlexW]

Probably not much. You could try going in with your editor and deleting out the passages between vocals; then using fade ins/outs to sweep into the vocals without too much notice of the hiss. Retrack it if you can.

[mulch]

I am at that point now. After slicing and fading it is actually more noticable.
Thanks,

[masteringhouse]

Have a look at some noise reduction plugs.

You should be able to create a noise profile when the vocalist isn't singing and use it to remove some or all of the noise depending on how bad it is.

[Atterion]

Originally Posted by mulch

I am at that point now. After slicing and fading it is actually more noticable.
Thanks,

How is it more noticeable??? If it is clicks and pops you are getting, make sure you are editing with some sort of Snap-To-Zero-Crossings enabled (Or whatever your particular editor may call it), that will eliminate that problem. Zoom right in close (Sample level), to be sure you are getiing all the hiss out of the in between parts). Adjust your fade-ins and fade-outs accordingly.

Obviously the best thing you can do is retrack the vox and hunt down what is causing the hiss (Obviously you want the best signal-to-noise ratio you can get). If you can't eliminate all the hiss, try to invest in a Noise Gate. Most compressors come with a gate. The gate will do a better overall job of removing the hiss without altering the sound as opposed to a Noise Reduction unit used in the mix (You can get good results with a Noise Reduction unit, but it depends on how much hiss is present). Obviously the lower signal-to-noise ratio the more affected the end product will be when used Noise Reduction. You can also try using a notch filter (Try a parametric with a very narrow bandwidth, set to cut). Sweep the filter across the frequency spectrum until you zero in on the hiss, and then widen the bandwidth and adjust the cut, until you are satisified the results (That method is basically just the manual way of doing what a NR unit does). But seriously hunt down the problem at the tracking stage, because you'll never get natural sounding vox, if you have to do a bunch of extra EQ'ing everytime you mix.

Excuse any typos or bad grammar, I've had to work 42 hours in the last 3 days and am a bit rundown right now.

[SouthSIDE Glen]

Originally Posted by mulch

I have a poorly recorded vocal track that has a constant hiss in it. It is noticable when the singer is singing but more noticable when they are not. The hiss remains at a constant frequency and volume throughout the track.

Are there methods to reduce the hiss with minimal impact on the vocals?

Notch filter? Plugin? Other?

Any advice is greatly appreciated from this rookie.
thx

All of the above

Hiss and fan noise can be tough things to get rid of, and even tougher to try and explain the recipe for repair in a printed post. Try the NR filters like Tom recommended. Or, better yet, re-record the offensive track in quieter circumstances. If you don't have access to NR plugs, however, or they just ain't quite doing the trick for you, or a re-tracking is just not logistically feasable, then try something manual along the lines laid out below. I have done this procedure many times before myself with excellent results. It's a bit more labor-intensive than just twiddling a couple of plug-in dials, so it's not for the squeemish or those unwilling to get their digital hands a little dirty However, if you wnat to try The Next Step, try something like this in the order given...

1. Use a noise gate to get rid of the stuff between vocals. (That's the easy part )

2. Try to apply a little bit of multi-band range expansion to knock down the low-level hiss in the vocals even further, ussing a narrow Q of expansion usually somewhere in the 2K - 6K range. Where in that range it might work the best varies depending on the source of the noise, room acoustics, coloration of the mic,any EQ that may have already been applied to the track, fan speed, etc., so it's impossible to say attack this exact frequency. You may have to do some high-Q sweeping with a parametric EQ to find the most offensive frequency first.

3. Try knocking out the rest of the knocked-down hiss with a couple of dB of paraEQ notch at the offending freq.

NOTE: It's important to find a good balance between steps 2 & 3. Overdoing either the expansion or the notching alone can really negatively affect the sound of the vocals, whereas just a little of both can do a much better job with less audible effect on the vocals.

4. As an alternate method to 2&3 (or as an addition if the hiss is really horrible), applying some light "smoothing" (at least that's what it's called in Sound Forge) to the clip followed by a little high-end EQ boost can somewhat effectively smooth the hiss right out of the waveform altogether and then re-build the vocal's presence, but this procedure has uneven results; sometimes it works well enouugh to get you by (especially on male vocals without a lot of high-register timbre), but sometimes it destroys the sound of the vocals and makes them sound like mud. Try at your own risk. You can always Undo if it winds up soundling like crap.

5. To clean up the hard breaks caused by the gating at the beginning and end of the vocal phrases, apply linear fade-ins and fade-outs to the first and last few milliseconds of each phrase, respectively. Just enogh to smooth the transition from gate to non-gate, but not enough to mage the vocals sound like they're being faded.

6. Depending on the nature of the vocal track itself, you may need to apply a light reverb tail at the end of each phrase to match the natural or applied reverb sound of the vocal itself and make the transitions to the gated quiet parts have natural-sounding verb.

HTH,

G.