Topic: help cleaning up a recording....

[save]

anybody out there good w/ soundforge who would want to help me out?  i stealthed a show a few years back and the clapping inbetween songs is WAY louder than the music.  i've tried messing around in soundforge trying to make it sound better, but just end up making it worse.  anybody want to mess w/ a sample of the recording and see if they can improve it at all....then maybe walk me through what steps you took    i'd reall appreciate it b/c it's one of my fav. recordings and my wife has been bugging me to make her a better sounding copy for her to listen to.  here's the sample, you'll need to rename the file to samplewav.flac instead of samplewav.zip...for some reason it wouldn't work as a .flac file:

http://www.awards-plus.net/samplewav.zip

[MarkyMark]

I first tried reducing the volume of the clapping by -4dB, which made it more level throughout. However when I normalized to peak level in each channel it didn't do too much.

Then I tried normalizing via RMS, which kept the loud parts loud but brought up the lower levels which made it more level again. I know RMS normalization falls out of favor with a lot of people, so you might want to try something else, like fading out the crowd noise after each song, and then normalizing to peak level. Hope this helps.

[heath]

don't use soundforge, so answer me this...  can you write fader automation in soundforge?  I would think this would be a simple solution if it is do-able....

[Chairman]

What about highlighting the crowd noise section, then process>volume and reduce the volume manually by several db?  Long and tedious, depending on how many sections there are, but it could work.

edit - I've done that in reverse - there is a GD tape where I wanted to raise the volume of the stage banter (everyone ragging on Weir for blowing verses) and it worked quite well. 

[Cooker]

a compressor on the clapping, instead of a gain reduction, might work better.

[nic]

don't use soundforge, so answer me this...  can you write fader automation in soundforge?  I would think this would be a simple solution if it is do-able....

you can write automation starting in ver7.
(while I love Mac software/DP, Soundforge w/ Waves plugins is the best overall 2 track editor)

[heath]

don't use soundforge, so answer me this...  can you write fader automation in soundforge?  I would think this would be a simple solution if it is do-able....

you can write automation starting in ver7.
(while I love Mac software/DP, Soundforge w/ Waves plugins is the best overall 2 track editor)

might have to mess around a bit with soundforge.  I've been strictly a Protools guy (aside from Nuendo at the "office") for quite some time. 

H

[dmonterisi]

a compressor on the clapping, instead of a gain reduction, might work better.

this is what i have done in the past and find it works better than gain reduction.  it smooths out the recording and makes it much more listenable.

[Brian Skalinder]

I, too, have used compression successfully in this sort of situation.

[pfife]

I've used volume reduction.  Worked fine.

[BC]

I also use compresssion in these situations.

Select the portion with loud clapping, and use Effects>Graphic Dynamics (in soundforge). I personally use a hard limiter with the threshold set about 5dB below where the music peaks. Repeat for all spots with clapping. Now you can peak normalize the whole file if levels are low. The clapping will sound weird since you are probably squashing it a ton, but who cares, it is just applause anyway. Hope this helps.

Take care,
Ben


 

[Brian Skalinder]

The problem I've encountered with simply reducing the volume is...I can hear the drop and the jump back up, even after spending gobs of time trying to get it smooth.  Sounds like moose flop, IMO.  Compression allows you to reduce the overall volume of the applause without the nasty drop/jump in volume.  (But maybe I just suck at adjusting volume and other have succeeded with that method.)

[pfife]

What do you guys see as the advantage of compression over just lowering the volume?  Just wonderin'

[Brian Skalinder]

What do you guys see as the advantage of compression over just lowering the volume?  Just wonderin'

See previous post. 

[keepongoin]

The problem I've encountered with simply reducing the volume is...I can hear the drop and the jump back up, even after spending gobs of time trying to get it smooth.  Sounds like moose flop, IMO.  Compression allows you to reduce the overall volume of the applause without the nasty drop/jump in volume.  (But maybe I just suck at adjusting volume and other have succeeded with that method.)

To avoid this, you could select about 1/2 the desired part and fade it out, then select the 2nd half and fade back in...

of course, the compression still sounds better, IMHO, though the volume tool still serves its purpose (it is great for those stealthed tapes where everything was too low b/c you couldn't check levels and ran soft to avoid clipping).