<<<Erm…yes I was getting a bit embarrassed at the length of this … no idea why it should have attracted so much interest, except that many, many people have problemsssssss with their …sssssibilants.>>>
Not at all. Trust me, if we weren’t enjoying this enormously, the thread would have stopped dead by itself days ago.
<<>>
We are hoping you’ll let us do that.
What he said.
Straight recording as best you can do with no processing. Therapeutic cats and all.
You don’t have to host anything. I’m pleased to post the performance on my web site--kozco.com. We just need to get the WAV file to California. Can it be burned to a data CD? I’ll post my mailing address (and send you a blank CD and mailer if you want).
…And redouble my efforts to get my hosting company FTP (file transfer) service to work–by far the easiest way out of this. I’m paying for it and it’s never worked right.
I now proclaim this thread probably closed … and the wonderful thing that has come out of it, is that maybe, just maybe, one day Audacity will have it’s own De-Esser.
I am so proud that my friend, the musician, and I have possibly sparked off one of the most wonderful inventions ever to hit modern wo(man) …
…we await…and I am so glad I didn’t listen to my reaction at one stage, to ‘throw in the towel’ because it was all getting a bit technical … we await …
There must be a reason this is so hard to do. Yes, I’m listening carefully to what happens during the damaged portions and what makes them key in the performance.
IF you have a sudden increase in high frequency energy, AND suppressed low frequency energy (note that sibilance and low frequency voice energy are never there at the same time), AND the overall level is above a certain point, AND the average noise level is low, THEN…what? What steps do you take to help the performance? Apply the Drum3 equalization curve?
Don’t forget look-ahead, so you don’t get leading edge ticking.
I’ve done some initial experimentation using nyquist for de-essing. So far I have been running multiple passes with different scripts which has just been to test my basic algorithm. I’ve still got the hard work of programming it all into one script and designing a usable, versatile (works on many different voice types), but simple (user friendly) interface.
Here are a couple of samples to demonstrate the method. The first is the original audio sample, normalized and converted to mono. Normalizing the sample first makes it far more simple to calculate levels. Converting to mono cuts out a few lines of code, speeds up processing time (my computer is very slow - just 500 MHz processor), and halves the size of the uploads/downloads. Once I have the plug-in, it will be simple enough to make it capable of processing stereo.
The second sample is a direct copy of the first (Ctrl+D) but has been processed with my de-esser algorithm. For my personal tastes I have over processed it (applied too much de-essing), but that is deliberate for demonstration purposes. the final interface will include a slider for selecting how much of the effect should be applied, hopefully with a default value that will be about right for most cases.
Just to throw mud in the game, did you do that from the original sound clip? I think I recognize an early stab at noise reduction in there where I didn’t get rid of all the artifacts, so the clip has competing patches.
Here’s the original sibilant, noisy WAV sound file.
Ah, indeed, you’ll get there eventually … BUT I thought you were going to use the extract from Shared Solitude which I recorded specially, as there were lots of S.sss in it ?!
And from what I listened to from Steve’s samples …
Original mono … sounds echo-ey.
Deessed mono
It sounds as though I have a lisp. Ah, that’s because you have over-processed it, I see. So if the de-essing is toned down, it could work.
But if Koz is right … I guess you start over again … I’m glad I’m here and not there.
Mags
I will probably post that clip, too. I’m messing about with my web pages (bring them up to W3C Validation) and doing a project for work and trying to keep up with this thread.
Yup, absolutely right - but we expect a brief break in t’clouds tomorrow …
Sounds from my newspaper today as though you could do with some of in in LA, right? I hear they’re planning to seed the clouds to try to provoke rain for you, Koz.
Yes indeed I have been using that and getting some good results. However, I switched over to Windows (My machine is dual boot Win XP / Linux Xubuntu) so that I could test the scripts in a Windows environment to make sure that they still worked, and I inadvertently left the “Shared Solitude” clip on the Linux partition (which cannot be accessed from Windows). The “original” clip that I posted was the best one I had to hand at the time, and I just had enough time to run off a test sample and upload it before rushing off to a rehearsal.
I’m hoping the weather improves this weekend as I’ll be up in Yorkshire (playing at a festival and camping in a tent). Hopefully get some more work done on the plug in next week.
Yes, I think you’re right. I’ll post a better sample in due course.
Is this the local natter club, discussing the weather … it drizzled here in Birmingham, England. Anyone got anything better to do? I have a poem called ‘Brolly’, rather funny, you don’t want that TOO, do you !
Steve, got Shared Solitude on Linux and can’t access from Windows, well that is entirely fitting. Like two people sitting side by side but NOT talking to each other !!
I’ve been trying to sort a new Audio thing that will play CDs, MP3 CDs, Cassette Tapes, USB sticks, you name it. Just about sussed it…arrrggh.
Better dash, as musician’s going to phone me at some stage, as she’s just back from the Cotswolds, where I had a lovely day last week and with a two day turnaround, she’s whizzing off from Birmingham to Monaco (where it is EXTREMELY HOT!)… I’m getting dizzy here …
Mags, the weather does have some slight bearing on recording, if you are transcribing from vinyl. The moist atmosphere helps prevent static clicks, as Koz has pointed out to me in the past.
And yes please to tennis - two weeks of Wimbledon on the Beeb - pray for minmal rain then …
<<<I hear they’re planning to seed the clouds to try to provoke rain for you, Koz.>>>
Anything to prevent having to ask unpopular questions, like, why don’t you stop wasting water?
Today’s LA Times has a piece by someone who pointed to a street where he lives that’s had water running down it for so long it’s green. The street, not the water. Indeed, when you rinse the carrots for dinner, that water can go on the philodendron, not to the city sewer.
I found the original ‘Shared Solitude’ clip and I’ll figure out a way to post it. Longer clips are better because when you’re designing an audio tool, you have to be careful that it doesn’t work only on one short audio segment. I’m particularly interested in having the tool work on the longer clip because that one has two problems; background noise and sibilance.
<<<Er…Koz. I don’t have a poem called ‘Natter Club’, but you can certainly use it.>>>
Cultural ships passing in the night.
In Hollywood-Speak, I would ask permission to use the phrase “Natter Club” for my own purposes. I had never heard that before. Given certain phrases are closely associated with performers or writers, the answer isn’t always “yes.”
Gilda Radner had a character called Rosanne Rosannadanna who, when caught up in a mistake, would offer the phrase, “Never Mind.” It became closely associated with her performance. Wendy’s Restaurants “Where’s the Beef?” also comes to mind. I’m sure that one is copyrighted and I would use it for another restaurant at my peril.
Hey Koz, unless you have actually acquired the “rights” by means of the above - perhaps we could ask Buanzo to rename “The Lounge” section of the forum to “Natter Club”?
Later on the radio news I heard that they had been using cement dust (among other stuff) to seed your LA clouds - and that some had coagulated into a lump of cement and crashed into some unfortunate’s house …
