"White noise" effect on recording

[MartinC_47]

... Now we're more concerned with identifying the source of the "white noise" and understanding why it appears to be interfering with the recording functionality of the laptop and her Sony recorder.

A common-denominator between two recording devices could be the quality setting of the mp3 your niece is creating,
low quality ( low bit rate) mp3s are small size , but have bubbly digital artefacts ... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bit_rate#MP3

If your nice is minimizing the audio-file size to send the sound to you as an email attachment, by choosing using a low bit-rate mp3 , then all the mp3 they send you by email will sound the same , ( potentially horrible) , no matter how it was recorded.

The standard practice is to upload the audio file to a file sharing site , then email a link to it , rather than email the large audio file, e.g. ... https://soundcloud.com/djbutcher/creede ... val#t=2:19 [ copyright infringement at your own risk ]

She created a file using the default option for MP3 in Audacity which is 128kbps I believe. There is a very high file size limit for the email system we are using.

I have VNC access to the laptop so I am now running the tests and using FTP to transfer the files to my computer.

I have attached a 10 second WAV clip, converted to mono. It was recorded today with the house empty and quiet. This is the "inaudible to the ear" sound of running water. ie. if you were in the house you would not hear the sound of running water.
I will arrange for a file sharing site and upload a sample with the music playing.

I hope you can identify the sound. Thanks for your help.

dec12-silence-mono1.wav

10 seconds of silence

(861.03 KiB) Downloaded 70 times

[MartinC_47]

Whatever the device was the music was loud and audible when she played it in front of the laptop.

It seems from the statement that your niece is using the built-in microphone on the laptop to record the music. Is this correct?
-- Bill

Yes. It is the built in microphone. As I said in a previous post we were not concerned about the quality of the recording. We were trying to identify the background sound, which sounds like running water. And to hear the music which is distorted.

Thanks

[kozikowski]

I read back through the posting. Nobody said the words: "We turned off Windows Enhanced Services." I'm guessing it's still running. That's what Services sound like when they're trying to cancel background noises on the built-in microphone.

Koz

[MartinC_47]

I read back through the posting. Nobody said the words: "We turned off Windows Enhanced Services." I'm guessing it's still running. That's what Services sound like when they're trying to cancel background noises on the built-in microphone.

Koz

I actually did but the post in reply to you has not been approved.

[kozikowski]

I see all the posts, all your posts are posted, I still didn't see those words, but I believe you.

Do you have and use Skype? Skype loves to brutally take over sound services on the computer running it. If you like to leave Skype running in the background, you may be using Skype's Noise Suppression, whether you want it or not.

You may be fighting an up-hill battle. Everybody wants to conference, chat and Skype, but nobody wants to record Stu Cook on the built-in microphone. I have a Tiny Personal Recorder that has Noise Removal I can't turn off. Yours may not go off, either.

Koz

[MartinC_47]

I see all the posts, all your posts are posted, I still didn't see those words, but I believe you.

Do you have and use Skype? Skype loves to brutally take over sound services on the computer running it. If you like to leave Skype running in the background, you may be using Skype's Noise Suppression, whether you want it or not.

You may be fighting an up-hill battle. Everybody wants to conference, chat and Skype, but nobody wants to record Stu Cook on the built-in microphone. I have a Tiny Personal Recorder that has Noise Removal I can't turn off. Yours may not go off, either.

Koz

Sorry but I submitted a post that does not appear here. At the end I asked you if you would mind if I sent you a PM because there were things I am not able to discuss in a public forum. Did you see that post? (I suppose it's possible that I just thought I pressed submit.) In any case that question still holds. Do you mind if I send you a PM?

The laptop is not used for Skype. The microphone was probably never used for anything until I had Audacity installed to try and record these sounds.

The enhanced services has a noise cancellation option and a echo cancellation option. The echo cancellation was not checked, the noise cancellation was checked. When I unchecked noise cancellation and did a test I could still hear the water flowing over the hiss. My niece's Sony recorder has noise removal permanently turned on and she hears the water sound on recordings, depending on where in the house she places the recorder.

Thanks

[Trebor]

My niece's Sony recorder has noise removal permanently turned on and she hears the water sound on recordings, depending on where in the house she places the recorder.

"Noise removal" digital-processing converts old-fashioned analogue-hiss into that bubbly EVP-type noise ,
i.e. the noise reduction/removal digital-processing creates artefacts that intermittently sound like a whispering voice. No ghosts required.

dec12-silence-mono1, (optimized for EVP-ness).wav

IMO pareidolia = "... 91 ... [man coughs] ... come for a long time ... we're out of time" [YMMV].

(423.09 KiB) Downloaded 41 times

See "auditory pareidolia".

[MartinC_47]

My niece's Sony recorder has noise removal permanently turned on and she hears the water sound on recordings, depending on where in the house she places the recorder.

"Noise removal" digital-processing converts old-fashioned analogue-hiss into that bubbly EVP-type noise ,
i.e. the noise reduction/removal digital-processing creates artefacts that intermittently sound like a whispering voice. No ghosts required.

dec12-silence-mono1, (optimized for EVP-ness).wav

See "auditory pareidolia".

I have spent a lot of time reading about EVP. It's interesting that in the freesound link, I hear "love-you-to-bits" in both the pink noise and the noise reduced samples while whomever posted that clip heard "subject correct" in the noise reduced sample. That's pareidolia. I must say that the flowing water sound in my clip sounds more like a babbling brookto me with a minimum of hiss.

I didn't really hear anything recognizable in your optimized clip, at first. Playing it over and over I began to hear the cough, which is interesting, or curious. I have heard a cough in other recordings she has made. I still don't hear the words you heard.

It appears to me that the internal integrated microphone array is perhaps optimized for the spoken word. Do you think that using a proper external microphone would improve the results and reduce the waterfall noise if all windows enhancements were turned off?

Thanks

[Trebor]

... I still don't hear the words you heard ...

The pareidolia is a subjective thing : people hear words in their own language and dialect because their brain is biased to interpret sounds in that way.

It appears to me that the internal integrated microphone array is perhaps optimized for the spoken word. Do you think that using a proper external microphone would improve the results and reduce the waterfall noise if all windows enhancements were turned off?

Turning off all forms of noise-reduction should eliminate the bubbly digital artefacts, ( which occasionally sound like speech) , the noise-floor should then revert to old-fashioned analogue-hiss , which is less like speech than digitally-processed hiss-noise.

[MartinC_47]

It appears to me that the internal integrated microphone array is perhaps optimized for the spoken word. Do you think that using a proper external microphone would improve the results and reduce the waterfall noise if all windows enhancements were turned off?

Turning off all forms of noise-reduction should eliminate the bubbly digital artefacts, ( which occasionally sound like speech) , the noise-floor should then revert to old-fashioned analogue-hiss , which is less like speech than digitally-processed hiss-noise.

I see. So if I turn off all possible noise-reduction parameters I can find and record some more "silence", rather than hearing the waterfall I should hear just the analogue hiss (assuming for a minute that I have now created a recording of the raw sound). Does that imply that I could turn that analogue-hiss into the waterfall noise if I applied the appropriate filters in Audacity? And, if so, what in your estimation would that/those filter(s) be?

Thanks