I have a female voice recording in my hands done with the built-in microphone of an iphone. I need to remove that high unnatural harmonic sound produced, which is really annoying. I don’t know the exact term about it, how it is called, so it is difficult to describe it. It resembles a …mosquito sounding in a high D, although the fundamental note sung by the woman is an E4 (about 320Hz).
I send the corresponding wav file. Any advice please?
Maybe more than one note. Can we get something out to five or ten seconds?
Koz
Yes, certainly there are more frequencies appearing, but it is more obvious in the last sung vocal (“pho”). I attach a longer sample here
Thank you. It’s not unusual for someone to get so wrapped up in one specific symptom that they miss, and fail to post, other damage.
In this particular case, I’m going to gently back away and let someone with better hearing take a shot at it. I don’t hear any serious damage.
I will be lurking because I’m working on techniques of using phones for voice recording. I’m not sure how you can get an iPhone microphone to do what you describe.
Many phones have two microphones. The one up next to the camera for video …
… and the one at the bottom of the case for telephone voice.
Do you know which was being used? Was this the sound track of a video?
Koz
I do hear some damage there. At about 5.5 seconds the voice ends the note, but “something” keeps singing. Like shouting into a wine glass. It keeps going, ringing at its natural note after you stop.
Koz
One other observation although I don’t know that it’s applicable in this case. Communications microphone systems hate music. A voice holding a single note is treated the same as motor or fan noises. Sense the note and get rid of it. That’s not what’s happening here. I’m still struggling to think of a way a phone microphone system can ring like a bell or wine glass.
It could be the ringing sound is always there and the phone’s noise gate is getting rid of it between voice notes. That can leave “tails” very much like that note at 5.5 seconds. That could be the room’s air conditioning or vent noises.
It can also be I’m finding problems in addition to your gritty noise.
There are no conditions that a good engineer can’t make worse.
Koz
We may be experiencing the reason it’s a terrible idea to apply effects, filters, and corrections during a recording. We can’t take them out. If that is a Noise Gate and it wasn’t there, repair might be a simple job for Effect > Noise Reduction. Maybe a notch filter or two in extreme cases.
As it is, the damage is hiding in the voice. Audacity can’t easily separate a performance into individual parts.
Koz