Can someone make this clip sound better?

[jacksepticeye]

I have a short clip from an upcoming commentary for youtube and I was wondering if someone here could take it put it in audacity and tweak it to make it sound a bit better and then let me know what settings you used? Cos I am having a hard time finding the sweet spot.

Here is the clip:http://www.mediafire.com/download/fo6ac ... dacity.wav

Any help would be greatly appreciated to make my commentaries have that little bit more quality

[kozikowski]

I would avoid bumping the microphone during the performance.

Download and start using Chris's Compressor.

http://theaudacitytopodcast.com/chriss- ... -audacity/

The quality is fine, but your volume levels are all over the place. This will fix that.

You don't need to get louder, but Chris will even out "expressive" volume changes which make it hard to understand and pay attention to the game at the same time. It makes final mixing much easier.

Koz

[kozikowski]

This might also be a good place for Effect > Compressor for the same reasons. The illustration is the settings I used. Koz

[jacksepticeye]

Thanks man. I always had trouble knowing which compressor settings to use.

So no EQ or anything then?

[Trebor]

So no EQ or anything then?

It's possible to substantially reduce the background hum noise if you paste the code below in Audacity's "Nyquist Prompt" ...

Code: Select all

(notch2 (notch2 (notch2 (notch2 (notch2 (notch2 (notch2 s 120 8) 148 12) 227 12) 321 12) 791 20) 851 22) 1407 40 ) 

notch filters to remove hum from jack-sepic-eye.gif (8.33 KiB) Viewed 5528 times

Then [optionally] apply Audacity's noise-reduction ...

Jack-septic-eye, original, notched, then noise-reduction.mp3

(783.67 KiB) Downloaded 568 times

[ IMO apply the notch filters and noise-reduction before applying any dynamic-range-compression ]

[kozikowski]

I know where you got 120 from (in the US), where did you get the other numbers -- or is this a custom series for that one clip...?

We're all beating about the bush. The poster really wants the equalizer sequence so he can sound like Don LaFontaine.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZJMGS7l0wT8

We have that sequence, right?

Koz

[Trebor]

I know where you got 120 from (in the US), where did you get the other numbers -- or is this a custom series for that one clip...?

They are the worst offenders on the spectrogram of "silence" on that clip ...

septic-eye ''silence'' spectrum.gif (27.18 KiB) Viewed 5521 times

septic-eye ''silence'' spectrogram, horizontal lines are hum (mains or HDD or fan).gif (90.5 KiB) Viewed 5521 times

[jacksepticeye]

I know where you got 120 from (in the US), where did you get the other numbers -- or is this a custom series for that one clip...?

We're all beating about the bush. The poster really wants the equalizer sequence so he can sound like Don LaFontaine.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZJMGS7l0wT8

We have that sequence, right?

Koz

I don't want a magic fix for my voice that will make it vastly better. I want slight improvements that make my audio sound more connected to me and not like it came from a mic. Less airy or washed out sounding.

Slightly tighter and deeper, so it sounds like a voice rather than a voice recorded with a mic. Hard explain but I think you know what I mean

[jacksepticeye]

So no EQ or anything then?

It's possible to substantially reduce the background hum noise if you paste the code below in Audacity's
[ IMO apply the notch filters and noise-reduction before applying any dynamic-range-compression ]

Damn that tweaked version you linked sounds much nicer than regular noise removal. Noise removal always left a whiney sound afterwards, this sounds reduced but still kept the integrity

[Trebor]

Damn that tweaked version you linked sounds much nicer than regular noise removal. Noise removal always left a whiney sound afterwards, this sounds reduced but still kept the integrity

In my experience it is better to notch-out any hum/whine before applying noise-reduction.

Via a plug-in ... http://manual.audacityteam.org/man/Notch_Filter

or via Nyquist Prompt ... http://forum.audacityteam.org/viewtopic.php?f=28&t=8571

[ It may be possible to improve on the list of notch filters I posted above ]