Reduce Background Noise

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GlosterMan
Posts: 2
Joined: Mon Sep 10, 2007 2:10 pm

Reduce Background Noise

Post by GlosterMan »

We have a windows movie video (wmv) that a breeder created for us and the birds in the background are so loud you can not really hear his voice over. Is there anyway we can reduce the bird noise in the background?

We have Goldwave V5.11 but the file is .wmv

Moulting Video 18mb


Any suggestions?
DougDbug
Posts: 2172
Joined: Wed Feb 16, 2005 3:33 pm
Location: Silicon Valley

Post by DougDbug »

NOTE - I didn't listen to your video (I'm at work).

:( This is going to be tough... Noise reduction works best when you have a constant low-level background noise, and a good contrasting signal. ...Noise reduction works best when you don't really need it. ...In commercial movies, the "on-location" dialog is re-recorded in a sound proof studio... Even they don't have software that can remove "location" noise!

In this situation, the best solution is probably subtitles if you have the software to do it.

You can try Effect -> Filter -> Noise Reduction. (But, I fear this will remove some of the speach, and will intorduce artifacts.) You can experiment with the presets. The clipboard option usually works best (after you copy a noise-only sample into the clipboard).

You can also experiment with Effect -> Equalizer to cut some of the mid to high frequencies, but this may affect intelligibility.




Quoting Myself: :)
DougDbug wrote:- An excellent recording doesn't need any processing.

- A program like GoldWave can turn a good recording into an excellent recording.

- If you have a bad recording, the cure can be worse than the disease.
GlosterMan
Posts: 2
Joined: Mon Sep 10, 2007 2:10 pm

Post by GlosterMan »

Thanks I will give it a try and see if it helps :)
Kummel
Posts: 141
Joined: Sat Sep 23, 2006 7:10 pm

Post by Kummel »

The bandpass filter helps to get more voice and less birds http://img407.imageshack.us/img407/2103 ... 414md9.gif because most of the noise is concentrated on the 2800-5900 Hz range, and some additional process allow to improve significantly intelligibility by reducing also the bass range to balance the missing treble. http://www.mezimages.com/up/09/534800-2 ... 234719.gif But it sounds impossible to get a perfectly clear noise-free speech, though this background-noise situation is less desperate than those usually submitted here.
:D
donrandall
Posts: 550
Joined: Wed Dec 01, 2004 11:06 pm
Location: Denver, Colorado

Post by donrandall »

Big budget movies often use ADR - Automated Dialogue Replacement - to get around such problems. I understand that you probably don't have the extensive resources and budget that a large studio production would control, but is it possible to have your man record his voice track in a studio - or at least - a quieter setting under better conditions? Then you could dub the new audio in and replace the old noisy original track.

If there is already a script, this would be relatively easy. Otherwise, someone would have to listen and transcribe his audio and type it up for ya.

If the camera is not focused in on him, the syncing may be a no problem kinda thing.
audibell
Posts: 7
Joined: Mon Apr 25, 2005 4:27 am
Location: New Orleans

Making the speech intelligible

Post by audibell »

Rather than reducing the obtrusiveness of the bird-chirrups might you get better results from upping the speech you already have? As long as the file is interleaved stereo and the speaker was dubbed in the middle, you might be able to extract the centre-panned dialogue, filter it by itself by suppressing the birdy frquencies and enhancing the manly frequencies, then line it back up (in MultiQuence) with the original and up it a bit to get the voice more prominent and then save it as a new file with hopefully clearer speech. You're better off getting your man to repeat his speech though. Even if the birds and speaker were recorded together, you might still get something useful by trying the vocal eliminator and its many variants.
Good luck
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