Audacity Forum

Hello,

I recently conducted an interview with a band, but I was forced to conduct the interview in the venue. When I got home and listened to the recording, you could barely hear our voices. They were there but the band that was playing was obviously louder than us. Now, I happen to know what songs were played and I have mp3's of said songs.

My question is: Can I use the mp3s to get the noise profile in order to clear up the interview? If so, how should I approach this?

Thanks a bunch!

Unfortunately there is little that you can do.
You may get some improvement by using the Equalization effect to cut down the bass frequencies (below 300 Hz) and the very high frequencies (above 7 kHz).

Noise Removal and interference processing all work really well when you don't need them. They were designed for the slight air conditioning whine in the far background of a successful interview. Most people want crime scene forensics. Take unrecognizable trash and turn it into clear voice.

Human voices and musical instruments tend to run in the same frequency bands, so equalizer tools tend to fall apart.

The rules for music cancellation are so strict as to make the process worthless. The music can't be in a compressed format, so that lets out MP3, Apple AAC, etc. The music can't ever have been analog, so that kills microphones, speakers, guitar amplifiers, etc.

So you have no show.

When the big kids do this, they tack wireless microphones to the chests of the performers or use a hypercardiod shotgun microphone. And still sometimes it doesn't work.

Koz

No worries, removing the bass helped quite a bit and I am able to make out the words in order to write the transcript. I was hoping to also upload the interview but it was not a requirement.

Thanks guys!