What is this noise and how to remove it?

[Andrew Smith]

Originally Posted by Rick Reineke

“Cans” is a slang term for headphones.

I have not heard that much since the 70's.

I'm pretty sure I heard it somewhere (most likely a regional radio station) in the 90s. Can anyone better that?

Andrew

[Graham Bernard]

Try this shop: https://theradioshop.co.uk/collections/headsets-cans

Thanks for reminding me of my age and my aging Sennies! Ah, nostalgia, it’s not what it used to be.

[Andrew Smith]

Nostalgia was so much better in the old days!

Andrew

[Don Palomaki]

https://playbutton.co/why-are-headphones-called-cans/

When a kid we played with the tin-can-and-string-telephones.

[Paul R Johnson]

Cans is still very common in the UK - more now for 'headsets with mics'. In theatre it's ettiquette to say "off cans" when you take them off so people know you're gone and won't respond any more.

[Allan Black]

In the studios as far back as I can remember, we always used the one syllable word “Cans” quicker and cooler than ‘Headphones.’

Cheers.

[Christopher Young]

Originally Posted by Kathy Smith

Hi,

I have this specific "hum" and I can't figure out how to remove it. I have IzotopeRX, and the de-hum module doesn't do much. I can run spectral de-noise on it and get some of it removed. Obviously it affects the voice if I try to remove it completely. So, I'm hoping someone will be able to determine specifically, what it is and maybe tell me how to target just that noise.

A quick clean-up attempt. With a bit more time, could be improved. Download from here:

Chris Young

https://www.sendspace.com/pro/dl/w3k5s5

[Graham Bernard]

Originally Posted by Christopher Young

A quick clean-up attempt. With a bit more time, could be improved.

Chris Young

Chris, nice job. I took the liberty of running your sample through RX Waveform stats. What do you think?:


https://www.dvinfo.net/forum/attachm...1&d=1672467470

[Christopher Young]

Yes Graham. I like that yours has more bottom end and sounds fuller. I found when I first tried giving it a bit more bottom end, it muffled the recording somewhat. Your recording made me revisit my first attempt.

To get to the result of version #1 that I uploaded, I just duplicated track #1 with the file on it to another track, track #2. I ran noise reduction on track #1. I then ran noise reduction on track #2.

Then I inverted the phase on track #2. This gave me 100% signal cancellation with track #1. No sound audible as the two tracks cancelled one another out. I then offset track #2 by three (3) samples to the right. This brought my tracks back to being audible. Obviously, though, sounding thin due to the opposing phase cancellation of track #2 vs track #1. On the master bus, I then added a DeEsser at 5506Hz with a -30dB threshold.

On this #02 version upload, again on the master bus, I added a +7.5dB boost @ 167Hz plus boosted the overall gain to peak at about -3dB. In other words, to levels I'm more than likely to use during an edit. All of it done 100% in Vegas Pro 17.

The inverted phase cancellation with offset method is something I've used for years when having to try to extract reasonable audio out of noisy ambient room mics for example.

Chris Young

Version #2 can be found here:
https://www.sendspace.com/pro/dl/6ejypm

[Graham Bernard]

Originally Posted by Christopher Young

Yes Graham. I like that yours has more bottom end and sounds fuller. I found when I first tried giving it a bit more bottom end, it muffled the recording somewhat. Your recording made me revisit my first attempt.

Well, thank you for saying. I always add gain to start with. A bit like in video seeing how much Gain I can add without video noise. So, I add GAIN in stages until I got a well-represented fuller SN ratio that I could use, then off to the Races with iZoRX10 Adv.

Originally Posted by Christopher Young

To get to the result of version #1 that I uploaded, I just duplicated track #1 with the file on it to another track, track #2. I ran noise reduction on track #1. I then ran noise reduction on track #2.

Yes, I cut my Audio teeth within the VP and SoundForge packages. Using much the same approach as yours. Dupe Tracks; Inversions and the NR package. However . . . . iZotopeRX came along and I haven't done any Audio correction within VP or SF for the last 5 to 10 years, only iZo - It is pure VooDoo!

Again I captured the Waveform statistics in iZo and produced this graphic for comparison:

https://www.dvinfo.net/forum/attachm...1&d=1672486153

[Christopher Young]

Understood Graham.

I also run iZotope RX10, Celemony Melodyne, Capstan (audio de-wow, fantastic for old tape sources). Along with a host of other audio tools and apps. Most history doco producers have to run a comprehensive set of audio and video tools these days.

Resolve is my main NLE these days. One of the reasons I'm still using Vegas is that I'm still working on a doco series that was started in Vegas ten years back because it was then the only totally video agnostic NLE in terms of mixing any and every type of video format back then. This series is still slowly moving forward. It's for the government. It's the official history series of the Australian RAN. The history of the navy since 1788.

This project is using footage of every conceivablevideo frame rate and dimensions from film and tape and archived film on a variety of files from MPEG1/2, AVI, MXF, MOV. PAL, NTSC, SD and HD etc, etc. Along with all manner of old audio archive material off film, tape and ancient audio files. The audio from most of these archives is incredibly poor in a lot of cases. Some of the audio dates back to WWI. The round tripping of audio in and out of other programs, then finally into Pro Tools for the final mixdown was becoming a pretty onerous task.

To simplify cleaning up all this audio in one spot while actually editing the footage, I decided to arm Vegas to the teeth with whatever audio tools were required and that could work with it. Over the years I have built a very comprehensive set of VST plugs that work within Vegas, mainly iZo and Waves. Having to clean up everything from ancient newsreels and ancient political radio speeches has been a great challenge. I'm very old school. Started working with audio with the BBC back in the '60s. Nothing digital, all analogue, no readouts, no repeatability, no saving presets. All we had were VU and phase meters. You tweaked until it sounded "right". Enjoyable though.

For potent and very quick and configurable dialogue noise reduction, it's very hard for me to go past Waves Clarity Vx Pro for my work these days. For me, this has been a game changer in terms of speed. Not to mention simplicity. Dial it as you listen.

Chris Young

Waves Clarity Vx Pro: The New Standard in Noise Reduction for Voice - YouTube

[Graham Bernard]

Chris - KUDOS!! Your experience far exceeds both my humble requirements and needs. In the short time I've been involved with Video, 20 years now, I've learned to try, absorb and share, and this during the tremendous technology upheaval in our Industry. For me, it's been exciting and financially rewarding, adding to which, coming across individuals, like yourself, who are willing and able to communicate their feedback.

[Andrew Smith]

In Kathy's last sample, the first thing that came to my mind was that it was suffering from a lack of microphone proximity. The second thing was that the content from the talent was a load of faffed about bollocks. I'm not at all surprised she found the audio to be unusable.

There are some things digital tools just can't fix.

Andrew

[Graham Bernard]

Originally Posted by Andrew Smith

In Kathy's last sample, the first thing that came to my mind was that it was suffering from a lack of microphone proximity.

Indeed. Always get the mic as close as possible to source. But, again, we start from what we have now.

Originally Posted by Andrew Smith

The second thing was that the content from the talent was a load of faffed about bollocks.

Nicely put. However, as pros we can’t necessarily get too dismissive of what was said, although it was a little ……

Originally Posted by Andrew Smith

There are some things digital tools just can't fix.

Andrew

Correct.

[Bernie Beaudry]

Originally Posted by Andrew Smith

In Kathy's last sample, the first thing that came to my mind was that it was suffering from a lack of microphone proximity. The second thing was that the content from the talent was a load of faffed about bollocks. I'm not at all surprised she found the audio to be unusable.

There are some things digital tools just can't fix.

Andrew

Not to disparage your's and Graham's efforts, but it seems what you did made the lack of proximity more apparent. There's also a subtle distortion that I'm hearing in both of the clean up samples. I think the distortion is inherent in the recording. Just more noticeable with the gain added. I gave a quick try just using gain then spectral denoise and the proximity issue wasn't as noticeable. I'll post a sample.