Noise...It's So Loud!

MichaelS wrote on 3/14/2006, 9:04 AM
I'm working on an audio cassette of a telephone converstaion for a legal firm. The nosie level is incredibly high, with the voice barely recognizable.

Any suggestions on how to pull, at least, some intelligibility out of the track. I've tried several combinations of noise reduction, EQ and compression with only a slight degree of success.

I know there's no magic bullet, but perhaps someone has experience in this area.

Thanks

Comments

busterkeaton wrote on 3/14/2006, 10:21 AM
You have the Sony Noise Reduction plug in and tried this?

Have you reduced noise successfully on other tracks? Is it just that this track is exceptionally noisy with a low signal?

First thing is roll off the top end and bottom end. For human voices, you can probably be aggressive on this end.

If the voice is right at the same level as the noise, I would try noise reduction before compression. Experts may weigh in differently on that, I'm not an expert.

When you do noise reduction, the best method is to try very tiny slices of the audio and then do it often. You want to zoom into parts where there is no voices. Then select just the noise, in the Sony Noise Reduction plug-in you can then make that selection apply to the whole track. Then redo this method a few times as long you are still reducing noise with each step.

After you have some noise reduced you may want to try doing an EQ sweep, take a very small band and make it louder. Sweep this up and down along the bandwidth, and see the places, where the voice or noise gets louder. Boost the voice and reduce the noise.

I would make a lot of copies and save often. Because you may find you want to do the steps in a different order.
DJPadre wrote on 3/14/2006, 2:21 PM
i dont think its the noise, but the line level input...

in ur windows mixer, drop it all the way down to zero, then hit the arrow up key ONCE

now in the playback device, adjust as required.

from here u should get get a fairly decent recording with good but LOW levels, using a vu meter to chk levels also helps, and this techniqu should keep al input lvels down to under -24db if ur doing it properly...
dont worry bout the low levels now, your gonna follow through the noise reduction and normalisation techniques explained by buster, but at least this way, ur inputs arent peaking to distortion and youve got some headroom to mess with before bringing the levels back up
johnmeyer wrote on 3/14/2006, 2:50 PM
Can you post a small sample (10 seconds or less)? You can put it in MP3 format for quick download. It is always tough to know what to recommend without hearing it. For continuous noise, like hum from machinery, the noise reduction works great. If you have line noise, coming from 50 or 60 cycle sources, they are usually very easy to get rid of using notch filters in the EQ section.
MichaelS wrote on 3/14/2006, 2:51 PM
DJ,

Thanks for the post, but the problem is noise...or better said, the voice on the other side is so weak, the native tape noise, air conditioners, etc., overcomes the the needed audio.

Thanks