finding cricket frequency

[dobro]

In the (very mortal) words of Jim White: "These crickets chirping in my hair are 'bout to drive me smack insane."

I reckon I can cut the impact of the crickets outside my window on my tracks if I can find the frequency they're chirping at - it's a pretty narrow band - they're all the same species, with the same ways. Anybody know how I can go about finding this frequency? It's either that, or go out into the night, interview each one individually, and reason with 'em.

 

[Meshuggah]

Place your most sensitive mic out to the least shy of them and ask him to rub his legs a bit, run it through a spectrum analyser..

 

[dobro]

Spectrum analyzer? Yes, if I don't mistake me, I think my Cool Edit Pro has one of those. Excuse me, I have to establish a brief hominid-insect relationship...

 

[BigKahuna]

I'd just crank the gain on a parametric EQ ... set the Q so it's as narrow a bandwidth as possible and just sweep around the freqs and see where it pops out the most ... then cut it as much as you need.

 

[John Sayers]

Dobro - we have crickets as well. We have two types as we also have a lower set I call the woodblock players. What I do is take a section from the front with the crickets and put it into soundforge noise reduction and click capture noise print. Save the noise print as crickets! - you can then apply it to a track and bingo! no crickets.
Hey are you guys sweltering like we are??
cheers
John

 

[dobro]

I don't have soundforge, so noise print reduction won't work for me. No heat here either, just lots and lots and lots of rain. So much rain I reckon it must be really dry somewhere else - we must be getting theirs.

 

[dobro]

John - it turns out that Cool Edit has the same feature as Sound Forge, and it works so well that THERE IS NO LONGER ANY CRICKET NOISE ON ANY OF MY TRACKS WHATSOVER! Whew! Breathing a bit heavily there. What a revelation. What a relief. I feel like a member in good standing of the home recording fraternity. Member in good standing would be a good line or title for a song, actually. Thanks for steering me in a useful direction, John.

 

[Tom Hicks]

This is also a useful feature for newbies with old hissy casette 4 tracks they want to transfer to CD,or "EQing the room" with a live recording.You scan a quiet bit before the track begins and use cooledit to take a snapshot of the room resonance profile.Knock the peaks back with para EQ and it really quietens up a live track.

Tom

 

[JC Lives]

One more idea

Try laying down some bug spray (the strong stuff) around the areas out side your windows. This will deter them from getting to close. HA HA HA

 

[dobro]

Tom, this sounds like a good idea - "You scan a quiet bit before the track begins and use cooledit to take a snapshot of the room resonance profile. Knock the peaks back with para EQ and it really quietens up a live track."

Take a snapshot? How? And then how do you map this onto the para EQ?

JCL - it would take a LOT of spray. I'd probably damage my lungs before it would discourage them.

 

[Tom Hicks]

Cooledit has the frequency analysis feature.It will give you a graphic-curve type readout of the region you select.If you can pick a region of "silence" before the music starts or even in a brief pause during the track,that will give you a profile of the room resonances and standing waves that are coloring the sound.
You might see 15 or 20 peaks in an avereage room.Put your cursor on the exact spot of each peak and cooledit will tell you the frequency to the nearest Hz.Record the positions of these peaks.
Using parametric EQ with a "Q" or width of approx. 5-10 cycles,knock the resonances back (the height of the peak will tell you how much to cut).Repeat this somewhat tedious process for the rest of them. You will hear the original track minus all the coloration.Computer-savvy guys could probably batch-script this sequence.

Tom

 

[bball jones]

I was layin down tracks in the summer when I had a varmint somewhere's in the studio, drivin me friggin' nuts. It eventually came to the light and I smashed his meely bug ass. Well I thought that was that until a few minutes later his mate starts chirpin like she is ready to hatch a demon cricket brood - whose sole reason for being would be to avenge their daddy-doin-dude. Man, was I glad when she came to the light. Wham !

 

[dobro]

Tom - really useful, thanks. If I put this to work, it'll take me further into what Cool Edit can do than I've been before. Sounds like a commercial, doesn't it? (over-important radio voice): "Go further with Cooledit than you've been before!"

 

[Tom Hicks]

I'm surprised nobody has mentioned Buddy Holly.He and the boys were rehearsing in the Holly family garage when a rogue cricket's chirping interrupted the session.They looked everywhere for it and eventually realised it was inside the sheetrock wall where they couldn't get to it.
Thus was born Buddy Holly and the Crickets,first as a joke but the name stuck.
This influence led the lads from liverpool to name their band the Beatles.


Tom

 

[bball jones]

Right again Tom Hicks,

Gary Bussey did a respectable job in the movie . . .

not fade away . . .