Verdict on the settings for new Noise Reduction?

[MichloIW]

Greetings all,

I've looked in both threads and I don't see a final verdict for regular room noise removal. I've tried various settings myself, of course, but I'm still not quite happy with the sound.

Gale said he/she would be doing more testing so I'm hoping more was determined.

Before I'm asked, I've attached two ambient noise samples.

In the second I think I managed to remove all noise and my voice sounds natural but I had to run the noise reduction twice, once before compression and once after.

Settings were 12.00, 2, 6.

Does it sound all right if we do the noise reduction at the end of all our other steps?

Cheers.

[kozikowski]

Best if we didn't need Noise Reduction at all, but that's not in the cards.

We have a couple of new tools since we last looked in on Hollywood. A most handy tool is flynwill's ACX analysis tool which gives you an ACX yes or no and then a list of the sound measurements that it found. No more Analyze > Contrast to get the readings one at a time and you don't have to constantly cycle through the forum to get readings.

Attached acx-check.ny
Slide that into your Audacity plugins folder and restart Audacity.
Open your show and select the whole thing by clicking just above MUTE.
Analyze > ACX Check
That gives you a box with all the readings in it and a brief opinion (attached).

The other tool you might already have. Steve wrote a rumble filter that plugs into Effect > Equalization.
LF_rolloff_for_speech.xml
Attached.

You have to install that separately into the equalizer.

Adding Equalizer Curves
-- Select something on the timeline.
-- Effect > Equalization > Save/Manage Curves > Import
-- Point at LF_rolloff_for_speech.xml > OK.
-- LF Rolloff for speech now appears in the equalization curve list.

Let us know when you get those two installed.

~~

I got the first clip to pass ACX and now I have to remember how I did it.

Select the whole clip by clicking just above MUTE.

Effect > Equalization > LF rolloff for speech (attached pix) > OK. Don't forget to run the Length slider all the way up.

Effect > Normalize (attached pix)

Effect > Noise Reduction > Profile from a second or two of pure fan noise.
Select the whole clip by clicking just above MUTE.
Effect > Noise Reduction > 12, 6, 6 > OK

Analyze > ACX Check

Koz

acx-check.ny

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Screen Shot 2015-06-11 at 23.02.20.png (38.59 KiB) Viewed 2979 times

LF_rolloff_for_speech.xml

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LF_rolloff.png (62.29 KiB) Viewed 2979 times

normalize.png (22.55 KiB) Viewed 2979 times

[kozikowski]

The actual instructions for use is carried in six sentences. Most of that is installing new tools. Noise Reduction of 12,6,6 is still a very gentle reduction. I can usually push people into compliance with 6,6,6 or sometimes not at all. One recent poster made do with some sound compression tools, adjust the volume and he's out the door.

When I do first pass inspection on your clips, they're both low volume and when I fix that, the noise level is way too high. Noise Reduction will be required on each chapter if you need to work with that noise level. Aren't you in your broom closet any more?

Koz

[MichloIW]

Thanks, Koz.

Yes, I have been using the LF_rolloff for speech for a while now.

I've plugged the ACX one in though.

I'm at 90% on the microphone at the moment, but perhaps I'll try 100% again especially since the series of books I'm narrating at the moment are told in a fairly quiet, reflective tone and level.

If you have the time (and patience) could you please explain why we do or do not use compression? That was in the list you all came up with for me so I always used it before. If I can use less, however, I'll gladly do it.

Cheers.

[kozikowski]

As I recall, your sound clips were consistently too fair, too quiet and too reflective. You should get more voice into the system. Having the voice level quiet and too close to the noise level creates constant problems with patches and filters and effects which can change from book to book and even from chapter to chapter.

You can see the Audacity screen while you're recording, right? Overload it as a test. Keep getting louder and pushing the volume controls up until the Audacity recording meters (in Audacity 2.1.0) go all the way up and turn red. Just down from that is where your normal reading voice is suppose to be. Putting the knob at 14 doesn't tell us anything because we don't have a Snowball or whatever you're using now. The knob needs to be where ever it needs to be to make the sound meter go up to -6 on a regular basis.



Koz

[MichloIW]

Ahem,

first of all, let us be clear that it was you who brought knobs into this, not me.

Second, it is the volume slider in Audacity so no knobs were harmed in the making of this recording.

Third, I'm almost done with a re-recording of the first chapter of the current book (still in that series, though) so I'll give you a listen to that (which I'm liking so far with just your settings, yay!) and then I'll do your test.

Thank you again. I hadn't meant for this to turn into another long thread. I just hoped there had been some consensus so you have my gratitude.

Cheers.

[MichloIW]

Koz,

my Chapter is uploading now and will be available here:

http://1drv.ms/1IacxnA

I'm liking how it sounds! It is a tiny bit out of ACX requirements, but it will pass.

Please let me know what you think so I may move forward with the rest of them on these settings.

Cheers.

[mickthefish]

Settings of 10.12.4 in NOISE REDUCTION cannot be bettered at the moment,And I've so far edited more than 500 of my 1960s tapes.i edit each tune in the project file individualy after highlighting as follows .CLICK REMOVAL(default settings) . AMPLIFY -1db. NOISE REDUCTION (10.12.4).
I really am satisfied with them all recorded at these settings.i use JVC High end earphones to monitor my 500 album recordings.i never need to keep altering the volume controls on my players either,its all taken care of with AMPLIFY.It works for tapes or vinyls.I Think the only song/tune i had a very slight atifact with was fleetwood macs SONGBIRD,But When Listening to it straight from the tape i think her singing VOICE is a bit unusual ,though the artifact was hardly noticable---mickthefish.

[waxcylinder]

I'm still using the defaults 12/6/0 for removal of webcarrier noise - seems ok, but can I do better ?

WC

[Robert J. H.]

I'm still using the defaults 12/6/0 for removal of webcarrier noise - seems ok, but can I do better ?

WC

Peter, do you have any sample of this web carrier sound?
I just wonder if a filter with pitch following or a phase lock loop wouldn't be better for that.

Robert