Any Suggestions?
Just did several tracks. They’re all clean except for my old Gibson archtop with the P-90 pickup. It has some underlying hiss, as usual.
I downloaded the free Audacity wave editor and tried the noise removal tool. Even though I tried several settings, it made the guitar sound unpleasant and unacceptable.
Is the noise removal in other wave editors any better?
Other suggestions???
I’m running 16 bit. I don’t exactly understand “dithering.” Would that help the guitar track?
Is there a way to adjust the frequency that the Audacity tool works over? On CoolEdit Pro (the old version of Audacity) you could make an adjustment such that only a specific range of noise was treated. Very handy, that. This was the “remove background noise” tool, not the “hiss removal” tool (which I never found much use for). If you have a spectrum analyser, and you have a section of the track where you hear the bakground noise and nothing else, you can get an idea of the frequencies that you’re looking to get rid of, and only treat them. Even the old “remove background noise tool” told you in rough terms where the sampled noise was in the spectrum. CoolEdit Pro had all these tools, and I found them very useful (and still do…). I don’t know what kind of functionality the free version of Audacity has, and I know the new version is $300 to buy, so maybe that’s out for you…
For what it’s worth, I always found a large amount of guitar pickup noise, and background noise in general, to be below 300Hz. Perhaps some surgical work with a parametric EQ can help you get rid of the most offensive of what you hear without harming your basic track too much.
Others here can give you much more informed answer about dithering and it’s effect on your finished work, but my sense is that it won’t help much…
John,
In Audacity did you first sample a bit of “noise only” for a profile before applying it to the whole track? The presets are too general to be of much help. Try to find a few seconds of noise only and make your profile. Audacity should do a pretty good job for you.
If you Google around you might still find a copy of Cool Edit 96 which has a good noise filter. The demo download will only allow 2 functions at a time and since one of them must be SAVE you only can run the NR function.
Another app is Blaze Audio’s Rip-Edit-Burn which has a full function 30-day demo with a nice NR feature.
HTH
Don
PS: I found a link to the older Cool Edit 96. Give it a squint here:
http://www.threechords.com/hammerhead/cool_edit_96.shtml
Rip Edit & Burn is here:
http://www.blazeaudio.com/products/ripeditburn.html
Munoise isn’t bad, helped me clean up some old 4-track recordings…
http://www.hitsquad.com/smm/programs/Munoise/
If you have a burner and Nero Burning Rom with it (after v 5) there is a ‘Nero Wave Editor’ in the software list that riminds of Cool Edit 96. Very cool and powerfull little app (doesn’t do much, but what it does it does well). It’s got the same type of noise reduction like CE.
You give it a second of the noise, tell it to analyze it, then tell it to go to the rest of the wave and take it out. You can control how much it must take out.
Quick question : Is the noise a problem only in guitar silences, or is it a problem while it’s ‘sounding’ as well ?
If it’s only during silent parts, you could use a noise gate and let the signal slip through unaffected when you’re playing.
W.
BTW Clava, I think you’ve got Audacity and Audition mixed up …
BTW2 Don, that is a great find. CE96 is hard to find nowadays , and IMHO one of the best tools to use. Only 16 bit, but still …
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| CE96 is hard to find nowadays , and IMHO one of the best tools to use. Only 16 bit, but still … |
Even better (24/32 bit too): CE2K.
Not so hard to find either.
The noise removal is still the best there is IMHO, if you tweak it right. Read the manual!
It’s been a long time since I’ve used Cool Edit 96 and probably I’ve learned quite a bit since then, but I think the current version of the program, Adobe Audition 1.5, has much better noise removal algorhithms. At least I seem to get better results.
It’s not a cheap software, but I ended up buiying it. Not for its multitrack properties (nTS if for multitracking) but as an audio editor.
hansje,
If I remember correctly (IIRC), the trial version of Cool Edit 2000 has either a 30-day time limit on use, or Save is disabled. I had it at one time, but since it was crippled, I went back to CE96 to use for noise reduction. If that’s all you use it for, the 2-features limitation is not a problem. The biggest fault, though, is it’s only 16-bit. Not useful for 24-bit files.
Don
Don,
You could be right.
I only remember the choose two features limit, but I bought CE2K very soon after it was out, so I wouldn’t really know.
It’s a real pity tho that Syntrillium sold out to Adobe innit?
H.
Another nice proggy is Acoustica although it is 16-bit too. I liked their NR function because you could use it like a notch filter. A 30-day trial demo is here:
http://www.aconas.com/
HTH
Don
does anyone use “Goldwave”? how does this compare to cool edit 96? i have both…but i am such a novice i don’t know which is the best to use for noise reduction.
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| BTW Clava, I think you’ve got Audacity and Audition mixed up … |
I do indeed, Wihan. My mistake. Frankly, it’s been a while since I’ve used my old CoolEdit app (I’ve been living on the dreaded ProTools TDM system at the studio for so long now…). I see some uses for it in the near future and actually looked for the new version on the Adobe site recently and completely mixed the names of these new programs up.
Just to reinforce the point though, whatever CoolEdit Pro is these days, I’m sure it’s a solid application and has the fine functions of that old workhorse in a more updated form. CoolEdit was the first recording program I used, and I still have a soft spot for it…
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| whatever CoolEdit Pro is these days, I’m sure it’s a solid application and has the fine functions of that old workhorse in a more updated form. |
That it has !
Cool Edit Pro is Adobe Audition
| Quote (g8torcliff @ Sep. 21 2005,07:40) |
| does anyone use “Goldwave”? how does this compare to cool edit 96? i have both…but i am such a novice i don’t know which is the best to use for noise reduction. |
I use Goldwave, but have not used Cool Edit. In Goldwave I find I can select a portion of the recording that just has the noise, copy that selection to the clipboard, then use Noise Reduction, selecting “Use Clipboard”, FFT=12, Overlap=95, Scale=100, and the noise reduction is excellent. Just the noise is removed, but the music tonality is untouched. This works best with low level hum and hiss. For instance, when dubbing a tape to a wave file using Goldwave, I can then sample the tape hiss, use NR and completely remove the hiss (total silence) but the music sounds the same, no loss of highs.
Another feature I use in Goldwave is Match Volume to measure the average volume level of my final ntrack mixdowns. I shoot for -16db. If the level deviates more than .5db from that, I remix in ntrack and create a new mixdown to get the average level I want. That way all tracks on an album sound the same volume level.
Goldwave is the program I have connected to ntrack as the external editor.
thanx vivona…i have been using GOLDwave for about three just as an editor and have also linked it to ntrack as an outside editor. i have always been satisfied with it.
when it comes to CoolEdit, i think i am suffering from the “read about it, gotta try it” syndrome instead of just sticking with what works well for me.
thanx for the tips on how else to use Goldwave…i will give them a try according to your parameters.
Thank you all for the useful advice. What a great group of folks you are! …and what a great forum.
John
vivona…i tried your suggestions above for using Goldwave NR for removing some noise (hiss) from a bass track on one of my songs…it worked perfectly. i had been just silencing the hiss between notes, but your method clears the noise from the whole track. that is a great new tool in my audio toolbox. you probably wont ever see this, but just in case, thanx again …what a great, simple tip. 
whoops…sorry