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Author Topic: Eliminating crowd noise, with artificial intelligence?  (Read 8824 times)

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Offline Pittylabelle

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Eliminating crowd noise, with artificial intelligence?
« on: September 05, 2022, 09:22:58 AM »
Hi there,

last weekend I taped the concert of Kraftwerk in Bonn, Germany (08 28 2022). The concert was unseated.

I'm sorry to say, I've never experienced such an unfocused, nervous and babbling audience as at this concert. I don't know if it was due to the long Covid break, this concert was also postponed twice, but maybe people are happy just to get back among other people. But it was no fun to listen to it let alone record it.

About three quarters of an hour before the show I looked for a good standing place in the area in front of the stage. Shortly before the concert I then noticed at some point behind me a group of (sorry) "housewives" who had obviously strayed to this concert of Kraftwerk. Then the crowd concentrated in the area in front of the stage, where I was standing. At some point, however, it was so full that I no longer had the opportunity to place myself somewhere else. This group of women behind me actually talked loudly for the whole two hours, as if they were sitting in a cafeteria with background music. Especially in the quiet passages this was unbearable - in the loud passages was then of course shouted.

All the babbling can of course be heard on the recording, and in such a way that it is really disturbing.

This recording has now led me to deal with the attenuation or elimination of audience noise. I haven't even tried that before because I thought it would be quite difficult and time consuming or almost impossible.

I own the program iZotope RX 9 and experimented a bit with it. My idea behind it was: If there is the possibility to isolate only the vocals (or human sounds), then it should be possible to get a track without vocals in the opposite sense. However, with the tools "Dialogue Isolate" and "Music Rebalance" this worked only moderately, even if I only select the relevant areas in the WAV file. The tools does indeed find human sounds, but only very litte.

Then I came across the website of www.lalal.ai. These relatively new possibilities to split tracks into the different instruments seem to be quite popular with DJs at the moment.

I then uploaded a few samples there with a blatant example and I have to say that I was quite flabbergasted at how good the algorithm used there is. The babble was filtered very well, except for a few pieces of music.

Sure, you can't use everything that this algorithm then renders from the files, since of course it also includes the vocals, and there will still be a lot of editing work to be done, but unfortunately the prices for a completely rendered concert are not what I like either imagine.

Has anyone here had similar or good experiences with eliminating audience noise, especially with these new methods of artificial intelligence?

Cheers

Michael
« Last Edit: September 05, 2022, 09:54:29 AM by Pittylabelle »
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Offline nulldogmas

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Re: Eliminating crowd noise, with artificial intelligence?
« Reply #1 on: September 05, 2022, 11:07:21 AM »
I have absolutely used Music Rebalance in iZotope RX to cut out chatty crowd members — the main drawback is that you can't use it in sections of the music with vocals, or it will delete those as well.

Have you tried futzing with the Separation slider? Usually there's a setting somewhere there that will at least reduce the volume of the talking substantially.

Offline Pittylabelle

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Re: Eliminating crowd noise, with artificial intelligence?
« Reply #2 on: September 05, 2022, 12:47:25 PM »
Thanks for your reply!

Sure, the sliders are the main adjustment option of the module "Music Rebalance" and there you can pull down the slider "Vocal".

But as I said, the biggest problem in iZotope RX is that the tool recognizes the babble as such very poorly, so I can not select it at all.
« Last Edit: September 05, 2022, 01:31:24 PM by Pittylabelle »
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Offline Dan33185

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Re: Eliminating crowd noise, with artificial intelligence?
« Reply #3 on: September 06, 2022, 07:16:23 PM »
One of the reasons I hate standing shows anymore is this exact issue. Standing seems to give everyone free license to talk throughout the whole show, whereas seated shows this is rarely an issue. I personally don't understand it.
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Offline Flynn

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Re: Eliminating crowd noise, with artificial intelligence?
« Reply #4 on: September 07, 2022, 05:58:47 PM »
you could also try the vocal de-noise function of rx9 or 10. It reduces the chatter a bit or at least to me. You can boost certain things after that. Just a thought.

Offline Pittylabelle

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Re: Eliminating crowd noise, with artificial intelligence?
« Reply #5 on: September 07, 2022, 06:01:33 PM »
One of the reasons I hate standing shows anymore is this exact issue. Standing seems to give everyone free license to talk throughout the whole show, whereas seated shows this is rarely an issue. I personally don't understand it.

I agree with you completely.

On the other hand, you can also have bad luck with a seat determined by the organizer. If there are "taper unfriendly" people in your environment, you can also do nothing. If the people then also have to pee every few minutes, and then ask you loudly for forgiveness, and squeeze past you between the rows of seats, you can also forget the recording.

I experience again and again.
« Last Edit: September 07, 2022, 06:15:02 PM by Pittylabelle »
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Offline Pittylabelle

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Re: Eliminating crowd noise, with artificial intelligence?
« Reply #6 on: September 07, 2022, 06:33:24 PM »
you could also try the vocal de-noise function of rx9 or 10. It reduces the chatter a bit or at least to me. You can boost certain things after that. Just a thought.

You mean the "Dialogue Isolate" module?

This has given me even worse results than "Music Rebalance".
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Offline Flynn

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Re: Eliminating crowd noise, with artificial intelligence?
« Reply #7 on: September 08, 2022, 05:46:56 AM »
you could also try the vocal de-noise function of rx9 or 10. It reduces the chatter a bit or at least to me. You can boost certain things after that. Just a thought.

You mean the "Dialogue Isolate" module?

This has given me even worse results than "Music Rebalance".

Nope. Vocal De-Noise module. Located just below spectral repair


Offline Pittylabelle

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Re: Eliminating crowd noise, with artificial intelligence?
« Reply #8 on: September 08, 2022, 11:35:48 AM »
Nope. Vocal De-Noise module. Located just below spectral repair

What is your exact procedure with the Vocal De-Noise module to filter and reduce the chatter?
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Offline Flynn

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Re: Eliminating crowd noise, with artificial intelligence?
« Reply #9 on: September 08, 2022, 12:30:07 PM »
It depends on the recording. Typically for my needs I make sure its set for music and gentle. You can let it be in adaptive mode and do most of the work for you if you are new to the module. Just play with it and see what you like.

here is a tutorial.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=csCOPUVmnho

Offline Pittylabelle

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Re: Eliminating crowd noise, with artificial intelligence?
« Reply #10 on: September 08, 2022, 12:36:10 PM »
It depends on the recording. Typically for my needs I make sure its set for music and gentle. You can let it be in adaptive mode and do most of the work for you if you are new to the module. Just play with it and see what you like.

here is a tutorial.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=csCOPUVmnho

Tanks for the link. By the way, I had already found the tutorial.

Unfortunately, the tutorial describes how to free non-dynamic, constant room noise from spoken words, which is nearly the opposite of what I want to do. ;-)

As the title of my thread says, isn't it the case that dynamic noise such as chatter can only be effectively filtered out when a kind of AI is used? An AI that has learned what concrete spoken speech is. I think a noiseprint that contains constant noise can't really work here.
« Last Edit: September 08, 2022, 12:53:08 PM by Pittylabelle »
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Offline EmRR

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Re: Eliminating crowd noise, with artificial intelligence?
« Reply #11 on: September 08, 2022, 03:13:46 PM »
This stuff keeps getting better.  I've a number of stealth recordings in which someone I'm with drunkenly talks to me the whole show, and so far I can't get it out.  But it's coming! 
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Offline Pittylabelle

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Re: Eliminating crowd noise, with artificial intelligence?
« Reply #12 on: September 09, 2022, 09:25:02 PM »
If someone is interested, here is my unedited recording with all the chatter:

KRAFTWERK 3-D - 2022-08-28 Bonn Germany 129.38 AUD MC
http://www.dimeadozen.org/torrents-details.php?id=736935

Cheers

Michael
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Offline checht

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Re: Eliminating crowd noise, with artificial intelligence?
« Reply #13 on: September 21, 2022, 10:51:16 PM »
Dgital editing is improving. And it can only do so much.

I think in this situation it's about positioning, and being willing to go for a stack tape. Proximity increases signal/noise.

Just go stand directly in front of the speakers haha.

Then you'll still likely have to do some work in post, but ideally it'll result in something you're happy with.
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Offline WiFiJeff

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Re: Eliminating crowd noise, with artificial intelligence?
« Reply #14 on: September 21, 2022, 11:01:38 PM »


I'm sorry to say, I've never experienced such an unfocused, nervous and babbling audience as at this concert.


We all look forward to the day when Artificial Intelligence will be able to overcome Natural Stupidity.  Not there yet.

 

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