Topic: Recorded buzz - any way to remove?

[Spiggy Topes]

Not an accusation, sorry if it came across that way. The thread started to drift very early, as threads do. Just thought I'd try to drag it kicking and screaming back in line.

[Marshall7]

my technique at least makes the conversation intelligible.

That's a lot more than can be said for this sentence of yours:

so I'm loth to buy software what won't fix the problem

To call out a guy for thread hijacking when he only meant to be of help is pretty fucking weak.

[Spiggy Topes]

Hey, all I said was I don't want to spend money on the problem if there's a fix that can be achieved without; I have nothing against anyone's postings here, I just came looking for a little advice, got it, didn't work, tried my own solution and I think it's as good as it's going to get. Take a look at the samples I put up, see if your suggested software would do the trick. I'm no expert in this kind of thing, but I don't think this is what you would normally categorize as "noise"; Audacity seems like a pretty solid tool and if it can't come close, then are you surprised that I'm not interested in spending money on it? For me, it's just become an exercise in tweaking a workable solution as far as I can with the tools I understand. If you think there's a better way to solve the problem, take the sample files and go for it, find a better way and explain what you did. *Then* call my response pretty fucking weak. Jeez.

[vanark]

weak.

[Spiggy Topes]

Not "pretty fucking weak", just weak, huh? Nothing better to offer? One tongue in cheek remark, and it turns a conversation into a shit storm. Who the fuck invited you anyway? Your first posting in this thread and it's one word. Weak. Witted, maybe.

[runonce]

Are you sure you're using the Audacity Noise Removal tool properly...?

You have to find, and select a small segment of just the noise...

Run the NR tool - and click "Get Noise Profile"

And then "Select All" - and re-run the Noise Removal Tool - this time omitting the "Get Noise Profile" step...

[Spiggy Topes]

Thanks for the return to sanity. Yes, as far as I can tell that's what I'm doing. Select a short speechless segment, sample that using "Get Noise Profile", then reopen the Noise Removal dialog with the whole file selected and click OK. I've tried a range of settings within the dialog, from both extremes to intermediate values, and no matter what, it doesn't leave the voice alone. I don't know how noise removal usually works, but I suspect it's by identifying frequencies in the sample and either eliminating or reducing those frequencies. So for a North American 60-cycle hum, or a British 50-cyle hum, it's a very specific target and easy to isolate. But here, the buzz is overwhelmingly load, and spans what looks to my untutored eye to be the same spectrum as the voice component. I've attached an image of the spectra so you can see what I mean.

If this is not how noise reduction works - I know it's a simplistic view, but I think it's close to the truth - then there may be tools to erase a repetitive spike such as we have here. If you have Audiocity yourself, and ten minutes to spare, please grab the samples I posted previously and give it a try. I've managed to salvage a number of the interviews with my own technique, but there are around 40 in total, all of 30 - 40 minutes, and some of them are hell to listen to, never mind correct.