hissing on recording

[rrworkshop]

Hi there,

I am using audacity 2.4.2 on a Macbook running Catalina. I've got a sontronics podcast mic and an ID4 interface. I can't seem to get rid of the constant 'hissing' sound, even though i've passed the ACX test, my client is comlainig about it. I've tried noise reduction at 9,6,6 and it doesn't seem to make any difference! Any ideas how I can improve this?

[billw58]

Your client must be listening on headphones, really loud.

To use the Noise Reduction effect you need to first select a sample of the track that is just the noise you want to remove. I selected starting at 1.775 seconds with a length of 0.383 seconds (just after the word "listener" and before the click) and used that as my noise sample. It helps to zoom in vertically to see the end of the word and the click, in order to avoid including them in the selection. I then selected the entire track and applied Noise Reduction with settings 12, 3, 3.

This is what I got. There is a noticeable difference.

-- Bill

clip of hissing_NR.wav

(655.99 KiB) Downloaded 8 times

[kozikowski]

What was that like before you applied corrections? Really tiny blue waves? Post some of the raw performance.

Koz

[kozikowski]

Let's see. You should have the DI (Direct In) knob all the way down. Monitor Mix knob at INPUT.

Mic Gain should be wherever it needs to be to make the meter -12 and -18 green lights light up most of the time with a very brief appearance of the -6 yellow light every so often. Is that how it's working?

Ignore Audacity for a moment.

Low voice volume causes very serious background noise problems. It's lovely to think you can cure problems like this with post production filtering, but that doesn't always work. Plus, some Quality Control people (like Audiobook-ACX) are looking for processing sound damage.

I noticed in your first submission, the background noise vanishes just after 7-1/2 seconds, but the clip keeps going. That's a danger sign. Some background automatic processing can do that. Quality Audio and Automatic Processing usually don't get along.

Koz

[kozikowski]

That big Volume knob. That's for speakers or headphones. Doesn't affect the show.

According to the instructions, you should be able to make good volume with just the stuff you have. I have no personal experience with either the microphone or the interface.

It's important that you can make the green lights come on.

Koz