Noise Removal - camcorder - please help!

[Marius Boruch]

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

[Battle Vaughan]

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!

[John Lorince]

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...:)

[Jim Andrada]

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.

[Paul R Johnson]

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?

[Marius Boruch]

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...

[Steve House]

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.

[Jim Andrada]

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.

[Marius Boruch]

wow, sounds great!

[Jim Andrada]

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.

[Marius Boruch]

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

[Jim Andrada]

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.

[Chad Johnson]

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".

[Jim Andrada]

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.

[Chad Johnson]

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.