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  #4   Report Post  
Robert Orban
 
Posts: n/a
Default Reducing noise but keep speech - Soundforge or other?

Beware of killing intelligibility even if your first impression is that a
given process helps audio quality. Losing low-energy consonants
can definitely make dialog harder to understand.

There seems to be an absolute plague of unintelligible dialog in
current feature film mixing, and one suspect is the various dynamic
noise reduction processes that are popular. I started to doubt my
hearing, except that older films seem to sound just fine.

This trend is a real mystery to me. In the good ol' days, dialog
intelligibility was the #1 goal in motion picture and television
sound.

In article ,
says...


I have some recordings of people speaking, which are obscured

by a
high degree of noise; the recordings being from aircraft, subway
trains (the Tube), general outdoor/street noises. I need to keep the
speech intact as much as possible, while reducing noise; said

noise
being generally much louder than the speech.

Is this at all possible? Can an app like Soundforge do it, I see there
is a Noise reduction option with SF? Are there other specialist
(Windows) apps which might work, or any audio editing apps

which are
reputable for this application?

thanks......


  #5   Report Post  
Robert Orban
 
Posts: n/a
Default Reducing noise but keep speech - Soundforge or other?

Beware of killing intelligibility even if your first impression is that a
given process helps audio quality. Losing low-energy consonants
can definitely make dialog harder to understand.

There seems to be an absolute plague of unintelligible dialog in
current feature film mixing, and one suspect is the various dynamic
noise reduction processes that are popular. I started to doubt my
hearing, except that older films seem to sound just fine.

This trend is a real mystery to me. In the good ol' days, dialog
intelligibility was the #1 goal in motion picture and television
sound.

In article ,
says...


I have some recordings of people speaking, which are obscured

by a
high degree of noise; the recordings being from aircraft, subway
trains (the Tube), general outdoor/street noises. I need to keep the
speech intact as much as possible, while reducing noise; said

noise
being generally much louder than the speech.

Is this at all possible? Can an app like Soundforge do it, I see there
is a Noise reduction option with SF? Are there other specialist
(Windows) apps which might work, or any audio editing apps

which are
reputable for this application?

thanks......




  #8   Report Post  
Charlie Hubbard
 
Posts: n/a
Default Reducing noise but keep speech - Soundforge or other?

On Fri, 03 Oct 2003 22:23:35 +0100,
wrote:

I have some recordings of people speaking, which are obscured by a
high degree of noise; the recordings being from aircraft, subway
trains (the Tube), general outdoor/street noises. I need to keep the
speech intact as much as possible, while reducing noise; said noise
being generally much louder than the speech.

Is this at all possible? Can an app like Soundforge do it, I see there
is a Noise reduction option with SF? Are there other specialist
(Windows) apps which might work, or any audio editing apps which are
reputable for this application?

thanks......


The Sonic Foundry Noise Reduction plug-in for Sound Forge *can* do a
pretty amazing job of eliminating background noise but it depends on
the type of noise. In particular, the technique that SF uses assumes:

1) You have a section of recording (usually in the same piece of
material you're trying to clean up, but not always) that consists of
no other sounds other than the noise you want to remove. For
instance, when recording speech, there is often "silence" before or
after the spoken text that contains nothing but the noise you're
trying to remove.

2) The noise to be removed is constant (at least in its frequency
components and preferably also in its magnitude) across the entire
section of material to be cleaned up. This is often true with things
like air conditioner hiss for instance. It seems like the drone of a
jet engine from inside the cabin is also a good candidate for the type
of noise that can be reduced using the Sound Forge technique. I don't
think it would fare so well against subway noise or street/traffic
noise since it is not constant.

Good luck!


Charlie Hubbard

  #9   Report Post  
Charlie Hubbard
 
Posts: n/a
Default Reducing noise but keep speech - Soundforge or other?

On Fri, 03 Oct 2003 22:23:35 +0100,
wrote:

I have some recordings of people speaking, which are obscured by a
high degree of noise; the recordings being from aircraft, subway
trains (the Tube), general outdoor/street noises. I need to keep the
speech intact as much as possible, while reducing noise; said noise
being generally much louder than the speech.

Is this at all possible? Can an app like Soundforge do it, I see there
is a Noise reduction option with SF? Are there other specialist
(Windows) apps which might work, or any audio editing apps which are
reputable for this application?

thanks......


The Sonic Foundry Noise Reduction plug-in for Sound Forge *can* do a
pretty amazing job of eliminating background noise but it depends on
the type of noise. In particular, the technique that SF uses assumes:

1) You have a section of recording (usually in the same piece of
material you're trying to clean up, but not always) that consists of
no other sounds other than the noise you want to remove. For
instance, when recording speech, there is often "silence" before or
after the spoken text that contains nothing but the noise you're
trying to remove.

2) The noise to be removed is constant (at least in its frequency
components and preferably also in its magnitude) across the entire
section of material to be cleaned up. This is often true with things
like air conditioner hiss for instance. It seems like the drone of a
jet engine from inside the cabin is also a good candidate for the type
of noise that can be reduced using the Sound Forge technique. I don't
think it would fare so well against subway noise or street/traffic
noise since it is not constant.

Good luck!


Charlie Hubbard

  #10   Report Post  
Ricky W. Hunt
 
Posts: n/a
Default Reducing noise but keep speech - Soundforge or other?

"gmc" wrote in message
...
AFAIK, Soundforge & the simalar Cooledit have functions to sample the
noise & then subtract that from your programme - works best on
continuous, cyclical noise like hum or airconditioning units etc -


That's true. If you're lucky and can find a good section of voice you can
also approach it from the reverse angle. Sample the voice and set the plugin
to "keep the noise". This can sometimes work in a pinch when you can't get
at it from the other end. From that standpoint the voice may be more
"continuous" than the random noise.




  #11   Report Post  
Ricky W. Hunt
 
Posts: n/a
Default Reducing noise but keep speech - Soundforge or other?

"gmc" wrote in message
...
AFAIK, Soundforge & the simalar Cooledit have functions to sample the
noise & then subtract that from your programme - works best on
continuous, cyclical noise like hum or airconditioning units etc -


That's true. If you're lucky and can find a good section of voice you can
also approach it from the reverse angle. Sample the voice and set the plugin
to "keep the noise". This can sometimes work in a pinch when you can't get
at it from the other end. From that standpoint the voice may be more
"continuous" than the random noise.


  #12   Report Post  
Marc Wielage
 
Posts: n/a
Default Reducing noise but keep speech - Soundforge or other?

On Fri, 3 Oct 2003 18:34:40 -0700, Robert Orban wrote
(in message ):

There seems to be an absolute plague of unintelligible dialog in
current feature film mixing, and one suspect is the various dynamic
noise reduction processes that are popular. I started to doubt my
hearing, except that older films seem to sound just fine.
-----------------------------snip----------------------------


There's a trend in modern feature film sound recording today to try to use
the actual production sound dialog as much as possible. I think in the old
days, at least half of the dialog would be looped; in action films (like STAR
WARS in the 1970s), probably 3/4 of the dialog would be looped, maybe more.

But it's a lot different today. Part of it is a creative trend, where the
directors know that the performance from a line looped in an ADR studio will
be markedly different than what was done on location. You can make a good
argument that great actors can actually improve performances this way, but I
suspect that actors are losing this ability as new generations come and go.
And it's hard to argue with the fact that a looped line never sounds quite
the same as one done on location, no matter how much EQ, reverb, or
processing is done to the sound.

And another part is that the equipment has improved to the point where small
microphones, digital wireless transmitters, and digital recorders have made
it much easier to get good dialog quality on location. Multi-track recording
makes it possible to use a plethora of wireless mikes, shotguns, and hidden
mikes, even within the same scene, so that no actor is ever out of range.

But the real problem (IMHO) is speed and lack of post-production time.
Movies are being rushed through so quickly, there often isn't time to bring
an actor in and re-record the dialog. So the poor mixers have to basically
just make do with what they have, even if that means subjecting the location
sound to massive amounts of digital processing to remove generator noise,
clothing rustling, wind noise, etc.

Lastly, there are problems where some inexperienced directors ignore warnings
from experienced mixers and demand excessive levels, sometimes at the expense
of dialog intelligibility. There's no easy answer to this, but well-recorded
movies do still exist, and not all movies sound bad, even today.

--MFW

  #13   Report Post  
Marc Wielage
 
Posts: n/a
Default Reducing noise but keep speech - Soundforge or other?

On Fri, 3 Oct 2003 18:34:40 -0700, Robert Orban wrote
(in message ):

There seems to be an absolute plague of unintelligible dialog in
current feature film mixing, and one suspect is the various dynamic
noise reduction processes that are popular. I started to doubt my
hearing, except that older films seem to sound just fine.
-----------------------------snip----------------------------


There's a trend in modern feature film sound recording today to try to use
the actual production sound dialog as much as possible. I think in the old
days, at least half of the dialog would be looped; in action films (like STAR
WARS in the 1970s), probably 3/4 of the dialog would be looped, maybe more.

But it's a lot different today. Part of it is a creative trend, where the
directors know that the performance from a line looped in an ADR studio will
be markedly different than what was done on location. You can make a good
argument that great actors can actually improve performances this way, but I
suspect that actors are losing this ability as new generations come and go.
And it's hard to argue with the fact that a looped line never sounds quite
the same as one done on location, no matter how much EQ, reverb, or
processing is done to the sound.

And another part is that the equipment has improved to the point where small
microphones, digital wireless transmitters, and digital recorders have made
it much easier to get good dialog quality on location. Multi-track recording
makes it possible to use a plethora of wireless mikes, shotguns, and hidden
mikes, even within the same scene, so that no actor is ever out of range.

But the real problem (IMHO) is speed and lack of post-production time.
Movies are being rushed through so quickly, there often isn't time to bring
an actor in and re-record the dialog. So the poor mixers have to basically
just make do with what they have, even if that means subjecting the location
sound to massive amounts of digital processing to remove generator noise,
clothing rustling, wind noise, etc.

Lastly, there are problems where some inexperienced directors ignore warnings
from experienced mixers and demand excessive levels, sometimes at the expense
of dialog intelligibility. There's no easy answer to this, but well-recorded
movies do still exist, and not all movies sound bad, even today.

--MFW

  #14   Report Post  
Richard Kuschel
 
Posts: n/a
Default Reducing noise but keep speech - Soundforge or other?


I have some recordings of people speaking, which are obscured by a
high degree of noise; the recordings being from aircraft, subway
trains (the Tube), general outdoor/street noises. I need to keep the
speech intact as much as possible, while reducing noise; said noise
being generally much louder than the speech.

Is this at all possible? Can an app like Soundforge do it, I see there
is a Noise reduction option with SF? Are there other specialist
(Windows) apps which might work, or any audio editing apps which are
reputable for this application?

thanks......




If the noise is louder than the speech, you are pretty much stuck unless the
noise is outside of the main speech band of 300-3kHz.

Noise reduction systems either work on playing with phase relationslips oe
frequency controlled expansion..

If the noise is louder, it pulls the speech aswell as the noise.
Richard H. Kuschel
"I canna change the law of physics."-----Scotty
  #15   Report Post  
Richard Kuschel
 
Posts: n/a
Default Reducing noise but keep speech - Soundforge or other?


I have some recordings of people speaking, which are obscured by a
high degree of noise; the recordings being from aircraft, subway
trains (the Tube), general outdoor/street noises. I need to keep the
speech intact as much as possible, while reducing noise; said noise
being generally much louder than the speech.

Is this at all possible? Can an app like Soundforge do it, I see there
is a Noise reduction option with SF? Are there other specialist
(Windows) apps which might work, or any audio editing apps which are
reputable for this application?

thanks......




If the noise is louder than the speech, you are pretty much stuck unless the
noise is outside of the main speech band of 300-3kHz.

Noise reduction systems either work on playing with phase relationslips oe
frequency controlled expansion..

If the noise is louder, it pulls the speech aswell as the noise.
Richard H. Kuschel
"I canna change the law of physics."-----Scotty


  #16   Report Post  
Bob Olhsson
 
Posts: n/a
Default Reducing noise but keep speech - Soundforge or other?

In article , Robert Orban
wrote:

This trend is a real mystery to me. In the good ol' days, dialog
intelligibility was the #1 goal in motion picture and television
sound.


It's the Pro-Tools "process it because you can" syndrome. Just as in
musical tuning and timing adjustments, the average person using (not to
mention creating) the tools has an oversimplified concept of how
everything works.

--
Bob Olhsson Audio Mastery, Nashville TN 615.385.8051
Mastering, Audio for Picture, Mix Evaluation and Quality Control
http://www.hyperback.com/olhsson.html
Over 40 years making people sound better than they ever imagined!
  #17   Report Post  
Bob Olhsson
 
Posts: n/a
Default Reducing noise but keep speech - Soundforge or other?

In article , Robert Orban
wrote:

This trend is a real mystery to me. In the good ol' days, dialog
intelligibility was the #1 goal in motion picture and television
sound.


It's the Pro-Tools "process it because you can" syndrome. Just as in
musical tuning and timing adjustments, the average person using (not to
mention creating) the tools has an oversimplified concept of how
everything works.

--
Bob Olhsson Audio Mastery, Nashville TN 615.385.8051
Mastering, Audio for Picture, Mix Evaluation and Quality Control
http://www.hyperback.com/olhsson.html
Over 40 years making people sound better than they ever imagined!
  #18   Report Post  
 
Posts: n/a
Default Reducing noise but keep speech - Soundforge or other?

Sounds like you need something along the lines of forensics. You might give
a look at Diamond Cut software, DCLive or DCart, which has some forensics
applications. --

Joe Salerno
Video Works! Is it working for you?
PO Box 273405 - Houston TX 77277-3405
http://joe.salerno.com
"Richard Kuschel" wrote in message
...

I have some recordings of people speaking, which are obscured by a
high degree of noise; the recordings being from aircraft, subway
trains (the Tube), general outdoor/street noises. I need to keep the
speech intact as much as possible, while reducing noise; said noise
being generally much louder than the speech.

Is this at all possible? Can an app like Soundforge do it, I see there
is a Noise reduction option with SF? Are there other specialist
(Windows) apps which might work, or any audio editing apps which are
reputable for this application?

thanks......




If the noise is louder than the speech, you are pretty much stuck unless

the
noise is outside of the main speech band of 300-3kHz.

Noise reduction systems either work on playing with phase relationslips oe
frequency controlled expansion..

If the noise is louder, it pulls the speech aswell as the noise.
Richard H. Kuschel
"I canna change the law of physics."-----Scotty



  #19   Report Post  
 
Posts: n/a
Default Reducing noise but keep speech - Soundforge or other?

Sounds like you need something along the lines of forensics. You might give
a look at Diamond Cut software, DCLive or DCart, which has some forensics
applications. --

Joe Salerno
Video Works! Is it working for you?
PO Box 273405 - Houston TX 77277-3405
http://joe.salerno.com
"Richard Kuschel" wrote in message
...

I have some recordings of people speaking, which are obscured by a
high degree of noise; the recordings being from aircraft, subway
trains (the Tube), general outdoor/street noises. I need to keep the
speech intact as much as possible, while reducing noise; said noise
being generally much louder than the speech.

Is this at all possible? Can an app like Soundforge do it, I see there
is a Noise reduction option with SF? Are there other specialist
(Windows) apps which might work, or any audio editing apps which are
reputable for this application?

thanks......




If the noise is louder than the speech, you are pretty much stuck unless

the
noise is outside of the main speech band of 300-3kHz.

Noise reduction systems either work on playing with phase relationslips oe
frequency controlled expansion..

If the noise is louder, it pulls the speech aswell as the noise.
Richard H. Kuschel
"I canna change the law of physics."-----Scotty



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