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Chad Chad is offline
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Default Cleaning up/Enhancing Audio

Hello everyone!

Does any one know of any good books, or be willing to teach me, how to
clean up audio? I have some audio experience, but I have not had to
do any editing/mixing/mastering in some time. What I have is audio
from a digital audio recorder, but I need to enhance some of the audio
on the recorder. I have Goldwave and Audacity as my primary audio
editors.

If you need any additional information, just let me know.

Thanks!
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John Williamson John Williamson is offline
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Default Cleaning up/Enhancing Audio

Chad wrote:
Hello everyone!

Does any one know of any good books, or be willing to teach me, how to
clean up audio? I have some audio experience, but I have not had to
do any editing/mixing/mastering in some time. What I have is audio
from a digital audio recorder, but I need to enhance some of the audio
on the recorder. I have Goldwave and Audacity as my primary audio
editors.

If you need any additional information, just let me know.

Thanks!


What for? And what's the problem?

Cleaning up a recording of a voice so you can understand what's being
said uses totally different techniques to cleaning up an instrumental
track so you can blend it into a mix, and may sound awful, but it will
be understandable. Removing or reducing single tones is easier then
removing broadband noise. Removing excessive reverberation (As when your
recorder was too far awqay from the source) is impossible, though there
are sometimes ways to make it sound a bit better.

Can you post a sample somewhere?

--
Tciao for Now!

John.
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Chad Chad is offline
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Default Cleaning up/Enhancing Audio

Thanks for your reply!

I don't want to sound too weird, but I do paranormal research. I have
some audio recordings that have supposed EVP (Electronic Voice
Phenomena) that I would like to enhance to try an hear the audio
better. I can send a file if you'd like.

Thanks!
Chad
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[email protected] sgordon@changethisparttohardbat.com is offline
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Default Cleaning up/Enhancing Audio

I've always been fascinated by this topic. From what I've read, it seems
that the theory behind it is that it should be done using a low-resolution
recording device that includes some sort of hiss, presumably so that the
entity can utilize that hiss to build an audio footprint. I believe that
what is done, is that the hissy audio is then processed in various ways to
remove the hiss and listen to what is left behind. I think the tools for
this would be a noise reduction tool that lets you sample the noise and
then remove it, as well as a de-hissing tool. Most audio editors offer this.

Although I tend to be a believer in ghosts and wish that I had the time to
try some of this for myself (I know of a couple of places that would be fun
for experimenting), I am highly suspicious of the technique. Many of the
"voices" from EVP played on late night radio sound an awful lot like digital
artifacts left behind after any aggressively de-hissed audio source. Either
that, or the concerts I've recorded have also been attended by ghosts!

I also suspect that the reason hissy recording devices are used, is that
researchers weren't finding any voices when starting with high quality
recordings. That's not consistent with the cases when people present
claim to have heard the voices while they were being recorded.

It reminds me of the time one late-night host was discussing his
processed pictures of the face on mars, showing the Martian buildings
he had discovered. Anyone familiar with digital imaging could immediately
identify his "buildings" as common digital processing artifacts.

That said, it's a fascinating field and I'd love to do some experimenting
myself someday. Being skeptical or unconvinced doesn't mean it's rubbish
or that it isn't worthy of continued exploration. I hope you can consider
trying new methods as well as existing ones.


Chad wrote:
: Thanks for your reply!

: I don't want to sound too weird, but I do paranormal research. I have
: some audio recordings that have supposed EVP (Electronic Voice
: Phenomena) that I would like to enhance to try an hear the audio
: better. I can send a file if you'd like.

: Thanks!
: Chad
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Scott Dorsey Scott Dorsey is offline
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Default Cleaning up/Enhancing Audio

Chad wrote:

Does any one know of any good books, or be willing to teach me, how to
clean up audio? I have some audio experience, but I have not had to
do any editing/mixing/mastering in some time. What I have is audio
from a digital audio recorder, but I need to enhance some of the audio
on the recorder. I have Goldwave and Audacity as my primary audio
editors.


Well, what's wrong with it, and what do you need to make it usable for?
There are a lot of different techniques and some of the things that
forensic folks do are very different than standard audio techniques.

Invariably, though, the answer is to retrack if possible...
--scott

--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."


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Chad Chad is offline
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Default Cleaning up/Enhancing Audio

For doing the recordings, I have an Olympus VN-3100PC audio recorder.
Here is the website:
http://www.olympusamerica.com/cpg_se...p?fl=2&id=1272

We do not use low resolution or static hiss generators. I have some
EVP that needs to be enhanced (which I'm trying to isolate the sound
and make it more "audible"). I'm trying to make out words or to make
the sound better to hear. As for what forensic people do, this would
probably be more what I would need to do. I you would like a copy of
the EVP I'd like to enhance, let me know.

Thanks,
Chad
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Scott Dorsey Scott Dorsey is offline
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Default Cleaning up/Enhancing Audio

Chad wrote:
For doing the recordings, I have an Olympus VN-3100PC audio recorder.
Here is the website:
http://www.olympusamerica.com/cpg_se...p?fl=2&id=1272


Here is your number one problem: this device uses perceptual encoding
methods, ie. lossy compression. There is no way you can tell whether a
given sound is actually a real sound or whether it's an artifact of the
compression process.

From a standpoint of provable validity, you're better off even with a
cassette deck than something like this.

You may want to consider something like the cheap Zoom recorder which can
record a .wav file.

We do not use low resolution or static hiss generators. I have some
EVP that needs to be enhanced (which I'm trying to isolate the sound
and make it more "audible"). I'm trying to make out words or to make
the sound better to hear. As for what forensic people do, this would
probably be more what I would need to do. I you would like a copy of
the EVP I'd like to enhance, let me know.


1. find out what you're looking for.

2. do something to remove signal that isn't part of that.

The first part is probably easiest to do with a sonogram or some other
spectral display. See what the thing looks like, then you know if you
can EQ out stuff that is not part of the sound or use expansion or
noise reduction (which is really just multiband gating). However, you
should know that the more processing you do, the farther away from the
original source you get, the less ability you have to argue the accuracy.
--scott

--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."
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ChrisCoaster ChrisCoaster is offline
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Default Cleaning up/Enhancing Audio

On Oct 24, 2:40*pm, Chad wrote:
Hello everyone!

Does any one know of any good books, or be willing to teach me, how to
clean up audio? *I have some audio experience, but I have not had to
do any editing/mixing/mastering in some time. *What I have is audio
from a digital audio recorder, but I need to enhance some of the audio
on the recorder. *I have Goldwave and Audacity as my primary audio
editors.

If you need any additional information, just let me know.

Thanks!

_________________
What is it you want to remove from the sound? Clicks, hiss, or other?

I've used Audacity to "extend" the bottom of some classic Studio 54
standards(Chic's Yowzah Yowzah, The People's Choice Do it Anyway you
wanna) because in those primitive vinyl days you couldn't have too
much thump and pump below about 60Hz. By analyzing the spectrum of
portions of those songs I was able to shift the bass drum hum down
from around 100Hz to as low as 50(!!!) and still have it sound good on
smaller setups. If I could press vinyl of those alterations they'd
probably be unplayable and skip all over without a sh$#load of
compression anyway and almost no counterweight on the tonearm. LOL!

Let's here what you'd like to do.

-ChrisCoaster
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Marc Wielage[_2_] Marc Wielage[_2_] is offline
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Default Cleaning up/Enhancing Audio

On Mon, 24 Oct 2011 15:13:33 -0700, Chad wrote
(in article
):

I don't want to sound too weird, but I do paranormal research. I have
some audio recordings that have supposed EVP (Electronic Voice
Phenomena) that I would like to enhance to try an hear the audio
better. I can send a file if you'd like.
------------------------------snip------------------------------


iZotope Rx would be a good place to start:

http://www.izotope.com/products/audio/rx/

What you basically want is _forensic audio_ tools, and you can find those
with a Google search. They're used by police investigators, detectives,
attorneys, and others to try to extract good sound under difficult
conditions, like telephone conversations, wiretaps, hidden microphones, and
so on.


--MFW

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Frank Stearns Frank Stearns is offline
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Default Cleaning up/Enhancing Audio

(Don Pearce) writes:

On Mon, 24 Oct 2011 16:41:23 -0700 (PDT), Chad
wrote:


For doing the recordings, I have an Olympus VN-3100PC audio recorder.
Here is the website:
http://www.olympusamerica.com/cpg_se...p?fl=2&id=1272

We do not use low resolution or static hiss generators. I have some
EVP that needs to be enhanced (which I'm trying to isolate the sound
and make it more "audible"). I'm trying to make out words or to make
the sound better to hear. As for what forensic people do, this would
probably be more what I would need to do. I you would like a copy of
the EVP I'd like to enhance, let me know.

Thanks,
Chad


Do you see pictures in clouds? I bet you do. Stop wasting your and
everybody else's time with this ********.


Much the same with audio perception:

high noise +
stochastic resonance +
naturally hair-trigger human pattern matching +
imagination =

ghoulies, ghosties, and things that go bump in the night (Well, we are coming up
on Halloween).

Frank
Mobile Audio


--


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geoff geoff is offline
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Default Cleaning up/Enhancing Audio

Don Pearce wrote:
On Mon, 24 Oct 2011 16:41:23 -0700 (PDT), Chad
wrote:

For doing the recordings, I have an Olympus VN-3100PC audio recorder.
Here is the website:
http://www.olympusamerica.com/cpg_se...p?fl=2&id=1272

We do not use low resolution or static hiss generators. I have some
EVP that needs to be enhanced (which I'm trying to isolate the sound
and make it more "audible"). I'm trying to make out words or to make
the sound better to hear. As for what forensic people do, this would
probably be more what I would need to do. I you would like a copy of
the EVP I'd like to enhance, let me know.

Thanks,
Chad


Do you see pictures in clouds? I bet you do. Stop wasting your and
everybody else's time with this ********.


Not to mention the ChemTrails.

geoff


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Chad Chad is offline
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Default Cleaning up/Enhancing Audio

Thanks for the help! I am excited to try some new software and
techniques and explore new avenues in terms of audio engineering.

I am disappointed, however, at the lack of professionalism by some who
use this site. I would like to use this forum again for questions,
but I am hesitant. If I walked into your business and was treated the
way I was here, I would look elsewhere for a better experience.

Again, thanks to those who have given me insight.

Chad
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Don Pearce[_3_] Don Pearce[_3_] is offline
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Default Cleaning up/Enhancing Audio

On Wed, 26 Oct 2011 10:38:34 -0700 (PDT), Chad
wrote:

Thanks for the help! I am excited to try some new software and
techniques and explore new avenues in terms of audio engineering.

I am disappointed, however, at the lack of professionalism by some who
use this site. I would like to use this forum again for questions,
but I am hesitant. If I walked into your business and was treated the
way I was here, I would look elsewhere for a better experience.

Again, thanks to those who have given me insight.


Professionalism? Are you claiming professionalism for yourself? I
mean, are you charging people money to do this? If so you are a
charlatan and a fraud - not merely stupid.

d
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Nil Nil is offline
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Default Cleaning up/Enhancing Audio

On 26 Oct 2011, Chad wrote in rec.audio.pro:

I am disappointed, however, at the lack of professionalism by some
who use this site.


This is not a "site." This is Usenet, a global network of servers where
anybody and everybody can post anything and everything they want.
Google just happens to be one of thousands of portals into it. You will
find all kinds of people here from experts to complete know-nothings to
good Samaritans to troublemakers. It's up to you to distinguish the
wheat from the chaff. It's no place for people with thin skins.
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[email protected] sgordon@changethisparttohardbat.com is offline
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Default Cleaning up/Enhancing Audio

Chad wrote:
: I am disappointed, however, at the lack of professionalism by some who
: use this site.

Usenet is not a business, and it isn't a place where one should come
expecting "professionalism". However, consider that you ultimately got
your question answered very quickly and very thoroughly, probably better
than if you had pursued it through a typical professional resource!
Goes to show you how wonderful the internet can be if you're willing
to dive in and take a few lumps.



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Scott Dorsey Scott Dorsey is offline
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Default Cleaning up/Enhancing Audio

Chad wrote:
I am disappointed, however, at the lack of professionalism by some who
use this site. I would like to use this forum again for questions,
but I am hesitant. If I walked into your business and was treated the
way I was here, I would look elsewhere for a better experience.


Well, it's Usenet, what did you expect?

I think the whole ghost sound thing is bunkum also, but that's because I
have never seen any reasonable evidence. So, it would be in my best interest
to tell you what I consider reasonable evidence, which is what plenty of other
people will as well. (And that involves no lossy compression, etc.).

I don't think there is a good book out there on forensic audio work, really.
Maybe Eddy Brixen will write one someday.
--scott
--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."
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John Williamson John Williamson is offline
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Default Cleaning up/Enhancing Audio

Scott Dorsey wrote:
Chad wrote:
I am disappointed, however, at the lack of professionalism by some who
use this site. I would like to use this forum again for questions,
but I am hesitant. If I walked into your business and was treated the
way I was here, I would look elsewhere for a better experience.


Well, it's Usenet, what did you expect?

I think the whole ghost sound thing is bunkum also, but that's because I
have never seen any reasonable evidence. So, it would be in my best interest
to tell you what I consider reasonable evidence, which is what plenty of other
people will as well. (And that involves no lossy compression, etc.).

I don't think there is a good book out there on forensic audio work, really.
Maybe Eddy Brixen will write one someday.

There's a nice introduction with links to further reading he-

http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/jan1.../forensics.htm

One thing that you will find is that it's a *lot* easier to get useful
results if you start with a stereo recording of the soundfield.

Also, bear in mind that in areas where hauntings have been reported,
there is often a strong VLF (1-10Hz) sound source, so you possibly need
a recorder that will go down that low.

Slightly OT, on the subject of pictures of supernatural events, I have
met a couple of people, claiming to have seen ghosts, but with unusable
pictures, who haven't even gone to the trouble of learning to combat
sensor noise in a digital camera. The pictures were a lot clearer after
they started using the right processing algorithms. No ghosts, though...

--
Tciao for Now!

John.
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geoff geoff is offline
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Scott Dorsey wrote:
Chad wrote:
I am disappointed, however, at the lack of professionalism by some
who use this site. I would like to use this forum again for
questions, but I am hesitant. If I walked into your business and
was treated the way I was here, I would look elsewhere for a better
experience.


Well, it's Usenet, what did you expect?

I think the whole ghost sound thing is bunkum also, but that's
because I
have never seen any reasonable evidence. So, it would be in my best
interest to tell you what I consider reasonable evidence, which is
what plenty of other people will as well. (And that involves no
lossy compression, etc.).

I don't think there is a good book out there on forensic audio work,
really. Maybe Eddy Brixen will write one someday.
--scott


If one want, one can see patterns in almost anything. Don't need software to
do it, though software may faciolitate seeing different or more patterns.

Ghosts. Isn't it funny how they are seldom naked. Clothes also have souls,
and ghosts thereof ?

geoff


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Scott Dorsey Scott Dorsey is offline
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geoff wrote:
Ghosts. Isn't it funny how they are seldom naked. Clothes also have souls,
and ghosts thereof ?


I worked a music festival at a nudist colony for a couple of years, and one
thing I noticed was that the people who were naked were usually the people
that you least wanted to see naked.

Trust me, you don't want to see the Limelighters naked.

So, I want to thank whatever ghosts there may be for having the good taste.
--scott

--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."


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Peter Larsen[_3_] Peter Larsen[_3_] is offline
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Chad wrote:

Thanks for the help! I am excited to try some new software and
techniques and explore new avenues in terms of audio engineering.


First of all: get a wave-format recorder, Zoom H2 comes to mind and is
modestly priced.

I am disappointed, however, at the lack of professionalism by some who
use this site.


People gave advice to the point on the question you raised and were honest
about their opinions.

I would like to use this forum again for questions,
but I am hesitant. If I walked into your business and was treated the
way I was here, I would look elsewhere for a better experience.


Where do you want to shop, where people are honest about their opinions or
where the lie to you, smile and take your money?

Again, thanks to those who have given me insight.


You yourself need to have the openness of mind that accepts also a negative
result of the research you want to undertake as well as the openness of mind
to respect people that have sufficient insight in standard laws of nature to
validly assert that what you look for, listen for, is outside the
possibilities in the known laws of nature.

You need to understand the psychological mechanisms of brains pattern search
and the fallabillity thereof because it is a possible cause of false
positive results. This is in many ways the same issue as the issue of the
placebo effect that gets raised as relevant in quite many contexts here.

If you have tried adjusting a bypassed audio implement and agreed with a
co-worker about the positive effect of said devices audio processing - I
have - then you get some valid and well-earned respect for the tricks your
own mind can play.

The sonogram feature of Audition 3, possibly also available in Audition 5
which is Audition 4 re-branded to fit into irrelevant softwares version
numbering, is very useful to display ordered signal. If you think you hear a
word you should be able to show a sonogram display of that part of the audio
file that looks like said word spoken.

I didn't say go rush spend money, I don't know all software that is
available out there, but in my opinion a sonogram feature is well neigh
required to make the point you want to be able to make as well as btw.
starting out with well recorded audio. My recollection is that a fairly
modestly priced RŘDE microphone has a good sensitivity as well as a very
good equivalent self noise, ie. is well suited for recording faint sounds.
Someone subjetively thinking they hear a word is not good enough, it has to
be objectively verifiable.

Coffee (caffeine) is btw. a known and proved cause of auditory
hallucination, so you should require of a listening panel - if you choose to
deploy one - that they do not drink coffee or "energy drinks" say for three
days prior to taking part. Read up on double blind test procedures, if he
reads this far I reckon that Arny Krüger may be able to provide link(s) to
literature about it, you may want or feel you need to resort to "making the
point via listening panel" and if so, you should comply with known and
proven procedures for getting statistically probable results.

In Bailey lingo: proof is generally a 5'th ray concept ... O;-) ... ie.
about concrete knowledge. Such is what we deal in in this here "shop", a
professional audio newsgroup on the usenet where skilled people offer their
know-how pro bono.

You have been well received, even by those who disagree with your
probability estimate, appreciate their honesty and appreciate and understand
their motivation for being honest and fair in their disagreement.

Chad


Kind regards

Peter Larsen



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Richard Webb[_3_] Richard Webb[_3_] is offline
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On Sat 2011-Oct-29 14:16, Peter Larsen writes:

People gave advice to the point on the question you raised and were
honest about their opinions.


INdeed. AS one who's been around here for over a decade I
can assure Chad that those who weighed in are quite
knowledgeable re all things audio. HIs areas of interest
appear to me to be somewhat akin to the field of forensic
audio. Iirc the founder of this group had some knowledge on that topic, but I've seen little actual discussion of it in
literature. A friend of mine has done a bit of it at the
behest of law enforcement as well.

snip
You yourself need to have the openness of mind that accepts also a
negative result of the research you want to undertake as well as
the openness of mind to respect people that have sufficient insight
in standard laws of nature to validly assert that what you look
for, listen for, is outside the possibilities in the known laws of
nature.


This is why I scoff at most so-called paranormal, ghosts and the like. IT seems that the firm believers in this stuff by and large reject science and the basic procedures which
enable a true scientist to prove a theory. The good
scientist always goes into his work knowing that the results may shoot wholes in theory, but well conducted work can do a lot to remove doubt.

Also for Chad, PEter's suggestions on testing panels, double blinds, etc. are well founded. Even though we argued
misplaced attribution to the placebo effect in another
thread where it was invoked by a fool, it is valid for your
application imho.

So much of what we do in the audio world is subjective, at
least the terminology we use. What's "warmer" or "more
pleasing" to me may be different than you. IT's when all
this crosses over to the quantifiable and measurable is
where we run into all the arguments. IT seems to me you
want a bit of both, a good forensic audio expert possibly,
and a listening panel to see if all agree on what was
actually heard.

Regards,
Richard
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