Urgently need to enhance voice dialog recorded in a noisy school enviroment.

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plainman007

Well-known member
Hi Guys,

I urgently need to bring out the voice dialog that is in a clip. The clip was recorded in a school with a lot of kids ambient noise in the background. The teacher was gving a voice comment on the video while this was recorded. Is there any way using EQ or some filter to enhance her voice alone while subduing the ambient noise. When i wear headphones and review the footage i can clearly make out what shes saying. Its just that the ambiance has this hum of a school building.

Any help would be greatly appreciated !

Thanks
 
Yes, but I am not sure how well I will work, but here we go. Open you file and you will want an eq that is sweep able. I use reaper, what I will do is grab point change the eq to notch, day it up to add volume, then slide it left or right until here voice gets louder. You can also do the opposite to remove unwanted frequencies. I hope that helps.
 
spgreen65 said:
Yes, but I am not sure how well I will work, but here we go. Open you file and you will want an eq that is sweep able. I use reaper, what I will do is grab point change the eq to notch, day it up to add volume, then slide it left or right until here voice gets louder. You can also do the opposite to remove unwanted frequencies. I hope that helps.
Click to expand...

Thats what ive been trying from this morning and its not working out well. Im not too good with sound too. Im ok with Video. Im trying to do this using the EQ generators/fx within Vegas. Reaper is a separate software i guess ?
 
DPStewart said:
Can you post a clip so we can hear what the exact challenges are? Thanks.
Click to expand...

You mean only the audio bit ? Or with the video ? Just asking due to file size limitations in sharing it with you. Also i dont know if we are allowed to upload an audio clip on here ?
 
Upload it to a file sharing site such as Dropbox and then give us the link.
Yes to just the audio, saved in PCM (i.e. WAV) format

Mike
 
You might try Sony Spectralayers Pro. Besides its very good general noise reduction, it also lets you manipulate the sound in layers, with an interface resembling Photoshop.
 
I tried Spectralayers and IZ RX4 before deciding. RX has a far superior interface. But to get reverb reduction, which is included with Spectralayers, you have to spend $1200. Spectralyers' interface is a challenge compared to RX, but the layer model opens up possibilities otherwise unavailable. And the trial version of RX is so crippled that you cannot really evaluate its full functionality.
 
rs170a said:
Upload it to a file sharing site such as Dropbox and then give us the link.
Yes to just the audio, saved in PCM (i.e. WAV) format

Mike
Click to expand...

Hi,

Im sorry for the delay. Ive had a run in of bad luck. My internet was totally down for several days now. Just resumed today. I have posted the .wav files as you had told me. The link is...

http://s000.tinyupload.com/index.php?file_id=94824523055841357439

If you listen with headphones you can make out the student talking amidst the cackle of the school students in the background. If you can find out how i can enhance that voice within vegas or suppress the ambient noise would be of great help. Unfortunately it wouldnt be viable for me to buy spectra and such tools etc. So any freeware that can do this if not possible thru Vegas will be helpful.

Thanks guys.
 
Too late to do it now, but a trick I've used with some success in noisy interview environments is to use a second microphone placed away from the subject to pick up only ambient noise. In the post mix, you invert the phase of the ambient noise channel. Mixing that with the interview channel cancels a significant amount of noise.
 
To reduce confusion, refer to noise as actual electronic noise, humming, etc.. vs ambient sounds, e.g. other humans, etc.. when someone refers to the noise reduction capabilities of a software, that can mean either or both, so things can get jumbly.
 
plainman007 said:
Hi,

Im sorry for the delay. Ive had a run in of bad luck. My internet was totally down for several days now. Just resumed today. I have posted the .wav files as you had told me. The link is...

http://s000.tinyupload.com/index.php?file_id=94824523055841357439

If you listen with headphones you can make out the student talking amidst the cackle of the school students in the background. If you can find out how i can enhance that voice within vegas or suppress the ambient noise would be of great help. Unfortunately it wouldnt be viable for me to buy spectra and such tools etc. So any freeware that can do this if not possible thru Vegas will be helpful.

Thanks guys.
Click to expand...



I finally had a chance to try your sound files.
Unfortunately I had no luck at all with iZotope RX5 or Adobe Audition.
The problem is that the voice is at the same level (and sometimes lower) than all the other noises which is a recipe for disaster.
The other noises are very close to the same frequency and any time I tried to get rid of any of the background noise, it got rid of the student's voice as well.
Sorry :(

Mike
 
rs170a said:
I finally had a chance to try your sound files.
Unfortunately I had no luck at all with iZotope RX5 or Adobe Audition.
The problem is that the voice is at the same level (and sometimes lower) than all the other noises which is a recipe for disaster.
The other noises are very close to the same frequency and any time I tried to get rid of any of the background noise, it got rid of the student's voice as well.
Sorry :(

Mike
Click to expand...

Thank you so much for at least trying so hard. I guess im out of luck then.

Next time (given the limited resources) can i hand an android phone in the students hand with the digital audio recorder running and they can hold it like a handheld mic and then in post i can take the sound from the phone and drop it on the vegas timeline. Will the duration match with the video shot irrespective of video frame rate ? Pardon me if this is a ridiculous idea.
 
plainman007 said:
Thank you so much for at least trying so hard. I guess im out of luck then.

Next time (given the limited resources) can i hand an android phone in the students hand with the digital audio recorder running and they can hold it like a handheld mic and then in post i can take the sound from the phone and drop it on the vegas timeline. Will the duration match with the video shot irrespective of video frame rate ? Pardon me if this is a ridiculous idea.
Click to expand...



An android phone might (and that's an awfully big "might") work. The problem I see doing it that way is that the mic on a phone will pick up everything around it and you might not be any further ahead than you were before. There are professional-grade devices that allow you to use an external mic and plug it into a cell phone (just like radio and TV reporters use) but the cost of those is probably out of your budget. What makes more sense to me is to rent is to rent an external recorder such as a Zoom or a Tascam and a good quality cardiod mic. I say cardiod because the pickup pattern will reject off axis sounds and make the speaker a lot more intelligible than a dynamic mic would. Good luck.

Mike
 
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