Background Tinkering

[Parvardigar]

Hello
I have this lecture. The audio is good. It is the person at the
camera. I can hear the opening of a cassette box. The snapping shut.
Tinkering noises. I can hear several distinct annoyances. If this
camera person had exercised movement discipline the audio would be
clean. Is there a method to isolate the tinkering effects - and remove
them? I use Audition Cs2. Thanks.

[Laurence Payne[_2_]]

On Sun, 11 Oct 2009 13:11:15 -0700 (PDT), Parvardigar
> wrote:

>Hello
>I have this lecture. The audio is good. It is the person at the
>camera. I can hear the opening of a cassette box. The snapping shut.
>Tinkering noises. I can hear several distinct annoyances. If this
>camera person had exercised movement discipline the audio would be
>clean. Is there a method to isolate the tinkering effects - and remove
>them? I use Audition Cs2. Thanks.

Maybe. Go through the track in your editor. Find the first unwanted
noise. Can you select its extent and lower the level, or maybe splice
in a section of "clean" ambiance without losing a word from the
lecturer? Some you will, some you won't. But you'll be able to make
some improvement.

There's no magic process that will do this automatically, if that's
what you were hoping for.

[hank alrich]

Laurence Payne > wrote:

> On Sun, 11 Oct 2009 13:11:15 -0700 (PDT), Parvardigar
> > wrote:
>
> >Hello
> >I have this lecture. The audio is good. It is the person at the
> >camera. I can hear the opening of a cassette box. The snapping shut.
> >Tinkering noises. I can hear several distinct annoyances. If this
> >camera person had exercised movement discipline the audio would be
> >clean. Is there a method to isolate the tinkering effects - and remove
> >them? I use Audition Cs2. Thanks.
>
> Maybe. Go through the track in your editor. Find the first unwanted
> noise. Can you select its extent and lower the level, or maybe splice
> in a section of "clean" ambiance without losing a word from the
> lecturer? Some you will, some you won't. But you'll be able to make
> some improvement.
>
> There's no magic process that will do this automatically, if that's
> what you were hoping for.

There might be. Based on reports from serious folks this app seems to
work what might pass for miracles fairly regularly.

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

--
ha
shut up and play your guitar

[Laurence Payne[_2_]]

On Sun, 11 Oct 2009 18:38:52 -0700, (hank alrich)
wrote:

>> There's no magic process that will do this automatically, if that's
>> what you were hoping for.
>
>There might be. Based on reports from serious folks this app seems to
>work what might pass for miracles fairly regularly.
>
>http://www.izotope.com/products/audio/rx/

I guess it's worth a try. It's not cheap though.

[Mike Rivers[_2_]]

Parvardigar wrote:

> I have this lecture. The audio is good. It is the person at the
> camera. I can hear the opening of a cassette box. The snapping shut.
> Tinkering noises. I can hear several distinct annoyances. If this
> camera person had exercised movement discipline the audio would be
> clean.

If the noises are "in the clear" you can edit them out. If there's audio
that
you don't want to cut, sorry, there's no magic filter or EQ settings
that will
help.

I still listen to the radio, and more specifically, radio with real DJs who
play real music off real CDs rather than having everything loaded on a
hard drive and triggered by an automation program. More and more I'm
annoyed by hearing the sound of a DJ opening or closing a CD case while
he or she is talking.

It's one of those 21st century sounds, like cell phones ringing, that we
just need to accept as ambient noise even though it's not random.

[Mike Rivers[_2_]]

Laurence Payne wrote:

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

> I guess it's worth a try. It's not cheap though.

I hadn't thought about "spectral" filtering, but that's definitely a
possibility. I once (just to see if I could) used that feature in
WaveLab to substantially soften an audience cough during a
fairly quiet moment in a concert. The concept seems to be
flitering (no pun intended) down to lower priced programs. I believe
that Adobe Audition has it, and that's a generally useful
program that's not too expensive.

[Don P.]

Mike Rivers scribbled:

> I still listen to the radio, and more specifically, radio with real
> DJs who play real music off real CDs rather than having everything
> loaded on a hard drive and triggered by an automation program. More
> and more I'm annoyed by hearing the sound of a DJ opening or closing a
> CD case while he or she is talking.
>
> It's one of those 21st century sounds, like cell phones ringing, that
> we just need to accept as ambient noise even though it's not random.

Well, I guess it's either that, or like one of the stations around here,
where you hear the Windows' error sounds every so often ("Doonk", "Da-
Dink"), and that annoying Windows "click" sound whenever they open a folder
or window. You think they would turn those sounds off on their broadcast
computer, huh?

[Don Pearce[_3_]]

On Mon, 12 Oct 2009 15:41:23 GMT, "Don P." >
wrote:

>Mike Rivers scribbled:
>
>> I still listen to the radio, and more specifically, radio with real
>> DJs who play real music off real CDs rather than having everything
>> loaded on a hard drive and triggered by an automation program. More
>> and more I'm annoyed by hearing the sound of a DJ opening or closing a
>> CD case while he or she is talking.
>>
>> It's one of those 21st century sounds, like cell phones ringing, that
>> we just need to accept as ambient noise even though it's not random.
>
>Well, I guess it's either that, or like one of the stations around here,
>where you hear the Windows' error sounds every so often ("Doonk", "Da-
>Dink"), and that annoying Windows "click" sound whenever they open a folder
>or window. You think they would turn those sounds off on their broadcast
>computer, huh?

Over here they have turned them off. Still get all the mouse click
sounds though. Someone needs to make a mouse without micro switches.

d

[GregS[_3_]]

In article >, Mike Rivers > wrote:
>Parvardigar wrote:
>
>> I have this lecture. The audio is good. It is the person at the
>> camera. I can hear the opening of a cassette box. The snapping shut.
>> Tinkering noises. I can hear several distinct annoyances. If this
>> camera person had exercised movement discipline the audio would be
>> clean.
>
>If the noises are "in the clear" you can edit them out. If there's audio
>that
>you don't want to cut, sorry, there's no magic filter or EQ settings
>that will
>help.
>
>I still listen to the radio, and more specifically, radio with real DJs who
>play real music off real CDs rather than having everything loaded on a
>hard drive and triggered by an automation program. More and more I'm
>annoyed by hearing the sound of a DJ opening or closing a CD case while
>he or she is talking.

As far as CD cases, you mean people actaully use them ??
I throw them away faster than you can say fast.
I do keep my mini digital camcorder tape cases.


I have not noticed noise too much. I mostly listen to
a small town station, usually one Dj, and thay play CD's, records, tapes,
whatever. They also have an autoplay when the DJ does not show up.
Great selection though.

greg

[Richard Webb[_3_]]

On Mon 2037-Oct-12 08:00, Mike Rivers writes:
> If the noises are "in the clear" you can edit them out. If there's
> audio that
> you don't want to cut, sorry, there's no magic filter or EQ settings
> that will
> help.

OF course not, and why I like to get a microphone away from
the operator of the gear in such situations.

> I still listen to the radio, and more specifically, radio with real
> DJs who play real music off real CDs rather than having everything
> loaded on a hard drive and triggered by an automation program. More
> and more I'm annoyed by hearing the sound of a DJ opening or closing
> a CD case while he or she is talking.

Used to hear that when I'd listen to wwoz in NEw ORleans
quite a bit. But there are two schools of thought there.

First: REal old school, air announcer was in a booth,
another person was board op. REquires some coordination
betwen the two, and an actual show producer.

SEcond: Stop sets. tWo turntables or cd players, other
media, cue the first, start it, cue the second, back to
first source while second plays, if turntables or cd
players, cue it, etc. All the noises of preparation happen
while the on air mic is muted.

i used to do audio for transcription and for those who
couldn't attend a convention for an organization of the
blind years ago. The lady who was organization secretary
used to like to sit at the headtable, and would insist on
making some notes as well with her slate and stylus. AT
least once a year while a featured guest or other august
personage was speaking I"d have to slip quietly up to the
head table and whisper to her asking her to move to another
table to make her notes or wait until we took a break. IN
fact, if I could I'd encourage her to sit with me at the
sound op table. She could peck away with her slate and
stylus punching braille into index cards all day. Since she was also keeper of the media when finished I could deliver
properly labeled media directly into her hands when it was
finished.

> It's one of those 21st century sounds, like cell phones ringing,
> that we just need to accept as ambient noise even though it's not
> random.

YOu'll note though that more groups and events are
requesting specifically that cell phones be set to vibrate.
OUr local ham club is now placing in the monthly newsletter
a request that folks turn off the ringers on cell phones
during meetings. YOurs truly this year's vice president is
one of the key reasons for this. I"m tired of trying to
pick up on a presentation at the meeting only to be
distracted by the lid with his cell phone or the two people
sitting behind me having a chat.

This instant in touch culture with the cell phones et al has caused us to accept a general level of rudeness that
wouldn't have been acceptable a generation ago.

Regards,
Richard
--
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[Mike Rivers]

For what it's worth, yesterday I sat with a guy from iZotope for a demo
of the
spectral editor in their restoration software package. The "handles" on
the tools
(including the graphic display) make it a little easier to locate what
you want to
remove than WaveLab and it was pretty effective in taking out some clinking
glasses and a cough in a recording in a club even when the stray noise was
coincident with the music. Not perfect, but the few milliseconds change
in the
music was less intrusive than the cough, and probably wouldn't be noticed by
anyone who didn't know where to listen and what to listen for.

The package costs $350 so unless this is an ongoing problem that needs to
be fixed "in post" (rather than just kicking out the noisemakers) it
might be
better to just hand your occasional recording over to someone who has the
tools and can zap the problems for you quickly.

[Mike Rivers]

GregS wrote:

> As far as CD cases, you mean people actaully use them ??
> I throw them away faster than you can say fast.

Guess so. I expect that on any top-40 live radio show, they
never see the original CD, they just get a collection of files
every week, put together by a music service. But the radio
I listen to is mostly college or community stations manned by
volunteers who bring in music from their personal collections.
Some stations, believe it or not, even still have music libraries,
and it's much easier to find something by looking at the case
(assuming it's properly labeled) than looking at a pile of loose
disks.