Increasing speech volume for court case against cheating husband

Audacity Help Forum Windows
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I am running out of time and am desperate to help my sister who found out her abusive husband has been cheating on her. My sister has lost almost 20 of the best years of her life. She is now 60 years old and has got to start over. I’m hoping hearing some backstory will encourage someone to please help.

My sister first suspected her husband was cheating on her in 2021. So, she hid an audio recorder in the kitchen light fixture, unbeknownst to her husband, which is legal in our State. Sure enough, the audio picked up the sound of her husband coming home, after my sister had left, followed shortly by the sound of another woman coming to the house, unbeknownst to my sister. My sister’s attorney says that she can use the audio file as evidence, as long as the content may be heard coming directly from a computer, without using headphones. The jury must be able to hear the content of the audio file without having to use headphones.

A lot more is audible via headphones than without them. Her husband (we’ll call him Aho) can be heard saying some things that I think surely are quite damning, especially since my sister will testify that he wasn’t saying them to herself. But it would help, immensely, if I can increase the volume of the whispering and anything the ‘other woman’ (we’ll simply call her “Ho”) is saying. If I can increase the sound of her voice, enough for it to be recognized, my sister will be able to use the recording not only in her adultery case, against her husband, but in an alienation of affection case against Ho.

I tried simply running a noise reduction filter but that either goes too far or I’m not doing it correctly. I also tried using a filter in EQ but that hasn’t helped.

If anyone can possibly make any suggestions, I would be most grateful. It wouldn’t be so bad if Aho had not been abusive and my sister had not done so much to try and please him, walking on eggshells for years and it still making no difference, whatsoever. She’s had hedge clippers thrown at her, been threatened, been chased down the drive way being yelled at that no one will ever want her. If there is one thing Aho cares about, it’s his public reputation. I absolutely cannot stand the thought of my sister losing this court case and his being able to charm the judge and jury. Please help…

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Usually the human brain is the best filter… Most of what you see on TV and in movies is “science fiction”.

Is any “processing” allowed? I would expect the opposing lawyer to accuse you of tampering with the recording. :frowning:

You can try the basic Amplify effect but that amplifies the noise along with the “signal”. You can also try Limiting (with make-up gain) to make “everything louder” but technically that makes the signal-to-noise ratio worse so it’s just something to try.

Or you might try hiring a forensic audio expert and her lawyer should be able to help with that.

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Noise Reduction creates artifacts which can undermine the credibility:
the artifacts can sound like words which were not said .

Compression with make-up gain … Compressor - Audacity Manual

suggested compression settings
suggested compression settings488×524 6.55 KB

Beware of Rorschach audio, (like the inkblots), where listeners misinterpret noise as words.

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Thanks so much for your reply. My sister’s lawyer says we can indeed legally amplify parts of the audio.

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Wow! Thanks so much! I never would have thought about people misinterpreting noises as words. This is going to be harder than I thought but I appreciate your advice.

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The acid-test is to play the audio to disinterested people without telling them what it is about. If their interpretation of what is being said matches yours, then you’re onto a winner. [Don’t give them any hints beforehand].

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True. My dilemma with that is asking people who don’t care about the situation to listen to this kind of content. Ugh. Can’t do that but thanks anyway. God bless