Removing Extranious Sounds

Hello all,

Brand spanking new user here. I don’t even really know which terms to search for so I’m throwing this out there. Perhaps someone can tell me how to track down what I’m looking for or they have the answer. I am grateful for anything.

I am recording nature sounds, specifically related to this post, the sound of running water in a creek. Due to my proximity to a highway and being underneath a major flight path of an international airport, I get cars passing by and planes flying over, even when recording at 3AM.

When looking at filtering software/plug ins, they all seem focused on removing “background” noise, leaving things like conversations, melodies, etc intact. I am looking for exactly the opposite.

I expect an accomplished audio engineer could remove these sounds, but I am not that. I am hoping there is a filter out there that could take a sample of the sound I want to keep and can remove other, irrelevant sounds.

Failing that, where would I look to find competent audio engineers who could do the job for me? Is there an UpWork or similar for audio engineers?

Thank much for your attention.

It might be a job for AI but I don’t know if AI is advanced enough yet, or if that kind of processing is available to the public yet,

Pros still record in soundproof studios for good reasons. Noise (any unwanted sound) is pretty-much the last remaining problem in the age of digital audio.

Right… When it comes to noise reduction, if the noise is bad, “the cure can be worse than the disease”.

Real world sounds contain multiple simultaneous frequencies that usually change from moment-to-moment and the signal and noise both usually cover most of the audible range and they overlap, making it virtually impossible to separate them. (If you have something like a low-frequency hum, that can often be filtered-out.)

What he said, and Audacity can’t split up performers in a mixed show. We can’t take that one singer out of the group, we can’t take out that trumpet from the orchestra, and we can’t take out that Boeing or that Chevrolet.

They are now performers in your show.

We can do much better with sounds that do not change. If you can get that jet to stay in one place for ten minutes, we got you covered. Once it starts moving, you’re stuck.

Koz

Thank you both for your insight and the time you took to respond.

I have to say I was half expecting this. Fortunately, I guess, I can just cut the unwanted section out. Being a “babbling brook”, it should hardly be noticeable even if you are watching for it.

I was trying to stay, “authentic”, but living so close to an urban area I guess that’s out of the question. Oh, well. have to drive further out next time.

Thank You

You have accidentally discovered one of the desperation methods of voice recording. A car is not a bad recording studio. I know one of the production people lives in a very noisy house between dogs, kids, traffic, and jets going over. And yet he turns in terrific voice tracks one after the other. I asked him how he did it. He said, “My Toyota.”

Koz

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