Please help with suggestion how to "fix" this audio file; there is a noise from either light bulb or PA system mounted in ceiling. I tried to find that frequency but I was unable to remove it. Please help.

Thanks in advance

Aaargh! You have a real problem --- a broad spectrum high level noise, plus a still camera clicking at a very high level. I played with a noise reduction program in Sony Sound Forge --- there are lots of others --- to see what I could do....the filter in the program made the voices more recognizable, but nothing, I think will eliminate the noise as it overlaps the vocal range of the speaker. The clicks, I just cut out altogether, as they completely mask the speaker. I'm also attaching a spectrum analysis of a sample that had just noise, without the speaker present. You might like to try SoundSoap or another special-purpose noise reducer, or to start, the noise filter in Audacity (excellent freeware). Good luck!

I have just became a fan of the Sound Soap Pro 2 Product, so that is my new software for noize removal, sounds like Battle has answered this question...And then of course monitoring audio as you tape...:)

I played with it in Izotope for a while. It's possible to reduce the buzz quite a bit, but not without some degradation of the voice quality.

It might help if I had a 5 or 10 second clip of just the noise without any voice, but I'm not too terribly optimistic. I have the older version of soundsoap, but usually Izotope gives great results. It's unfortunate that the buzz overlays the voice frequencies as badly as it does.

I think this might be time for the "re-record" filter. Otherwise known as try to record it again, if possible, paying close attention How was the voice mic'ed? If it was with the camcorder mic you'd be facing an uphill battle to get any improvement.

The spectral display shows quite a mess. Wide band noise all over the place - I'm not certain there's really much that can be recovered here?

Here is almost all of bad audio file; I'd really appreciate if you could "take a look" at it and advise what could be done.
On the other hand, what could cause such a bad noise; it was recorded in a hotel room...

Are the voices what was supposed to be recorded here? If so, aside from the noise pickup, how far away from the people talking was the microphone placed??? The voices are so faint they sound like they were a long ways away, perhaps all the way on the other side of the room. Heck, to my ears they sound like they were in the NEXT room!

The buzz sounds like noise from a faulty lamp dimmer - were there by any chance ceiling lights on dimmers in the room?

I don't think there's anything that can be done to clean this up enough to actually end up with a usable take.

https://files.me.com/jimandrada/b4z7yf.wav

I just installed Izotope RX-2 Advanced and thought I'd try this file again. Played with it for 20 minutes and making progress - far from perfect but...

I hope the link works - this Apple site can be fussy about what browsers it will talk to - works fine with Firefox.

If you try and it doesn't work e-mail me and I'll forward you a copy as an attachment.

By the way, re source of noise - could it be a noisy ballast on a fluorescent fixture? If the mic was on camera (DSLR) I've heard some horrible buzzing noises from stabilized lenses if stabilization is left on. Depends on lens of course. Anyhow, more info re the actual camera and mic setup would certainly help us figure out what caused it and give suggestions for how to avoid it in future.

wow, sounds great!

By the way, I noticed you had linked to a different file in one post - I think it's longer. If it would be helpful I can run it through the same process as I did for the shorter file. Just let me know.

I could get the camera clicks out as well but not sure that's necessary. Let me know.

Jim, longer file is what I need to fix; camera clicks are OK;
thank you so much!

OK - I'll work on it when I get back this evening. I suspect you're more concerned with being able to understand the speech than with the quality of the reproduction so I'll target that.

I just took a crack at it with RX. Man is that a loud buzz! First off I removed the 60cycle hum, which helped. Then ran a "declicker" to lower some camera noise. I tried selecting a section of the noise between dialogue parts, and using denoiser at -6db, and that helped somewhat. You can at least almost hear the dialogue. Also you could go through and select each of the long horizontal lines (in the orange spectrum display) and use the gain (shift+6) to remove them one by one. Or at least select the brightest lines at the bottom then turn them down all the way.

The problem is that the noise is louder than the signal (voice). Couldn't you hear that when you were recording? Anyway, you may be able to make it so you can hear the voice, but there's no way you'll have the voice sound "good".

Hi Chad

Coupld you post a bit of the result you got? Curious as to how it compares to what I posted above (https://files.me.com/jimandrada/b4z7yf.wav, also using Izotope. I like to keep a library of these tough files and what people make of them as part of the endless learning experience.

I'm trying to attach an mp3 of the whole file, and a wav of a small clip, and a png image of what the spectrum looks like. I think your clip sounds better than mine. I did hum removal, deNoise, once over the whoe file, and again just in the middle band where it was the strongest, then I removed some camera clicks, then selected the tones caused by whatever machine that was, and reduced individual bands.

I think your bit sounded better than mine Jim.


It looks like the mp3 won't upload.

Oh I also selected the area where the voices are and turned that up 6db.

FWIW the "auto-heal" function in Soundbooth makes the camera clicks go away very nicely. Not much help on the rest of the problem, I tried removing the hot lines from the spectrum and it removed most of the voice along with it....

Here's the whole file 16bit, 44.1 wav file:

http://darkwhite.com/downloads/noise-removal-FIX-RX_EQ.wav

I could have gone through and removed all the camera clicks but I didn't bother. I did a few.

Chad,

Thanks much. Not sure I'd say one is better than another, just different. Funny - I tried hum elimination first followed by de-noise and got the sort of hollow sounding background so I changed tack and de-noised first on the grounds that the hum was already in the noise. I got a bit aggressive with reduction, just backing off when the voices got hollow sounding.

Then I ran a weak hum removal that helped a bit. Everything else I did to it brought back the hollow sounds. I didn't worry about the camera clicks

By the way, I e-mailed Mathius and asked him about his recording setup and he told me it was the built in mic to Ch 2 and an Oktava (camera mounted) to Ch1 via XLR. I'm going to try playing around with the separate tracks a bit, but I did notice that listening to individual tracks in mono gives better voice quality.

I wish I had a clue about where the noise came from - I would think interference on an unbalanced line, but with the same noiseprint on an XLR line and a built in mic I'm at a loss. Ground issue???? Camera was probably on battery.

I wish Izotope would keep a rogue's gallery of noise and what settings it took to banish it so you could listen to it and try to relate it to what you were working on.

By the way, which version were you using? I had V1 standard but took advantage of a discount and upgraded to V2 Advanced. First time I've used it so still a lot to learn.

Thanks again for posting.

Jim I have version 1, and plan on getting 2.

With audio restoration the forst step is always hum/rumble removal. It makes for less work for the noise removal plug. I've taken a few tutorials on noise removal and getting rid of the low stuff is always first.

So that sound wasn't happening in the room? I thought it was some big air conditioner. Anyway, yes mono is always more clear for dialogue. I would see what the Ocktiva alone sounds like. Otherwise maybe one channel of the on-board mic. The fact that the OP probably had AGC on made this even worse.

NEVER USE AGC - ALWAYS MANUAL AUDIO LEVELS.

Yes, this was pretty bad! Good news is that he only seemed to care if the speech was understandable.

I'm wondering if there really was any official hum - this noise is so all over the place that it isn't clear what's what. As I understand it the hum removal works on the base frequency and it's harmonics - so if the harmonics aren't there as expected it might savage something else. Not sure I'm making any sense, but I thought I noticed that hum removal resulted in hollowness so I backed off..

Oh well, it's mostly black magic. Maybe the right idea is to just sacrifice a goat to the sound gods and get on with it.

There was hum and hum harmonics. I saw them disappear when I applied it.

hey have any of you guys tried the W43 plugin? someone told me it's supposed to be really good for this kind of stuff. would love to hear it though from someone that has used it.

I haven't tried it, but it looks like it only does some of the things RXII does. They sell the other things separately. But hey, if this is all you need take a gamble. I find that I end up using most of the methods of restoration in one project. Search Youtube, and you may find someone demoing the Waves thing.