Audacity Forum

Hey guys, I used the noise reduction tool to get rid of some background noise for the podcast I record/edit. Now the background noise is all gone but my co-hosts and I are unintelligible due to a warbling sound whenever we talk. Is there anyway to fix this? Or should I schedule a quick re-record?

Did you keep the original WAV files from the performance? If you didn't, do that next time, even if you never use them again, against something like this happening.

Once you get noise reduction damage and you export the show that way, that's the end of the story -- and the show. If you use Audacity Projects during production, you need to know that Projects do not save UNDO. So unless you exported and backed up the original show, yes, you need to start over.

And start over with Audacity 1.3.12 from here...

http://audacityteam.org/download/

If you use Lame or FFMpeg, get those fresh from the same web site. Don't use old software. Audacity 1.2 is no longer supported, updated, corrected or patched.

Now.

You will find that the noise reduction in Audacity 1.3.12 is vastly better and more comprehensive than the older one.

http://wiki.audacityteam.org/wiki/Noise_Removal

However, it's not going to work for most people because of a misunderstanding of what "noise" is. It's not a Metrobus starting up outside your window and it's not a TV running in the background. It is a slight fan whine or air conditioning rumble that lasts the whole show.

What noise are you trying to fix?

Koz

I'm trying to fix white noise in the background, like a hissing or a general static sound, the microphones we are using to record are not high quality. They pick up a lot of 'noise' and its throughout the entire recording, so I used the noise removal filter and the noise did in fact go away. However, it made me and my co-hosts sound like we were R2-D2.

Thanks for the help, I'll make sure my co-hosts download the new and improved Audacity.

Just a quick note on how Noise Reduction works. You need to provide a segment of show that is trash-only. No valuable performance. This becomes the "profile" in Audacity-speak. Then you run the tool again and the tool tries to subtract the profile presentation from the show.

The problem with hiss or white or pink noise, is the tool, without further prompting will try to subtract everything from the show -- voices and all. That's what happened to your original show. White noise or hiss has all frequencies and all energy levels.

D'Oh!

So what Audacity 1.3.12 does is try to determine when somebody is speaking and turn noise reduction off during the spoken words. It can work remarkably well if the problem isn't too severe. If it's terrible, the best you can do is hissy words over a rumbly background.

You can't actually do this -- you can't turn trash into a perfect show. You can only make it a little less trashy.

Koz

Thanks for all the help, I've upgraded my software and I'll be using it from now on.