How to get rid of sudden noises?

[johny0704]

I've recorded a lecture on my mobile phone, transferred it to the computer and converted it into mp3. The quality is really bad - so bad that I can only understand the meaning of a few words professor was saying. But I really need it for the upcoming collage exam (Monday).

So I imported it in Audacity and tried to do some noise removal. I'm not very excited with the result, but at least I can understand about half of the words - so maybe I could get the meaning if I listen the whole recording a couple more times. The problem is there are still a lot of loud but very sudden noises (coming from the things that were very close to the microphone while recording) that didn't go away with applying Noise removal -effect.

What should I do to get rid of these?

Also if someone has some quick tips how to improve a recording with a catastrophic quality (a lot of noise) to the point that you can understand what the person was saying, it would be appreciated!

P.S.: I'd be VERY grateful if someone could reply as soon as possible, because I'm quite in a hurry. :p

[steve]

The problem is there are still a lot of loud but very sudden noises (coming from the things that were very close to the microphone while recording) that didn't go away with applying Noise removal -effect.

What should I do to get rid of these?

Probably nothing. I would expect that if you manage to get rid of those sudden bursts of noise it will just leave a "hole" in recording. It's unlikely that any sounds hidden under the noise will survive.
One thing that you could try, but I don't hold out much hope, is to apply a "High-pass Filter" set at about 200 Hz (in the Effects menu).