$$$ for help removing high pitch "ssss" sound

paudieshea · Member Joined: 04 Nov 2009 Location: Canada

Hi, I am looking for some help removing high pitch “ssss” whistle sounds from my audio clip? I have tried many things so far but I am new to audio editing and need some guidance. I have about 80 clips with 160 minutes of audio. I need to get this problem fixed ASAP. I am willing to pay $50 to any one that can give me clear directions as how to remove this high pitch whistle “sss” sound.
So far I have tried de-esser in the following programs without much success:
Adobe Audition
Adobe Sound Booth
ProTools.
I have also tried to copy “s” without the whistle to replace the bad “s” but this does not sound natural.
I have tried fadeouts on the “s” sounds but it keeps the high pitch whistle.
I have tried amplitude reduction on the “s” sounds but it keeps the high pitch whistle.
And I have tried some mixing and matching of all the above without much look.
I can improve the sound but not completely remove it.

m7s10.take3.wav

paudieshea · Member Joined: 04 Nov 2009 Location: Canada

Right Click on the m7s10.take3.wav link above and select "save target as" to download a clip. Note the words "goals", "LifeGoals", "objectives", "Tasks" "activities", "timlines".

lordsmurf · Posted: Nov 04, 2009 11:40

I've been restoring audio for 15+ years now, digitally.
While I have a lot of posts here at Videohelp on the topic, there are quite a few more here:
- http://www.digitalfaq.com/forum/forumdisplay.php/restore-filter-improve-17.html
- http://www.digitalfaq.com/guides/video/index-restore.htm

I'll look at your file.

UPDATE: Sorry, but that can't be fixed. The person reading is the problem, she hisses and whistles when she speaks, holding on to plural letters like a snake. Software can't correct that, it needs to be done up front, both with a person that is trained to speak, as well as with a better microphone at an optimal speaking distance. The recorder sounds like its gain is too high, too -- cooking the audio a bit.
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lordsmurf · Posted: Nov 04, 2009 11:52

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MOVIEGEEK · The Dude Joined: 08 Mar 2002 Location: CA,USA

I did this in Audacity using low pass filter set to 800Hz:

after.wav

I agree with LS that the problem is her speech pattern, you can't do much with a lisp. Another problem is the source is MS ADPCM which accentuates the hiss, if you could get the files in PCM then the quality would be better:
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/89879
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paudieshea · Member Joined: 04 Nov 2009 Location: Canada

Hey LordSmurf,

Let me know how you get on with the .wav file.

paudieshea · Member Joined: 04 Nov 2009 Location: Canada

Hey MovieGeek,

I think that the file you have worked on is no better than the versions i have being able to create myself. Any other ideas??

MOVIEGEEK · The Dude Joined: 08 Mar 2002 Location: CA,USA

lordsmurf · Posted: Nov 04, 2009 13:38

Or get it redone by a proper voice actor.
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netmask56 · Member Joined: 16 Sep 2005 Location: Sydney, Australia

Re-record with a better microphone, pay attention to peak levels and maybe try getting the narrator to speak across the microphone rather than directly into it. Most of the problem is the nature of her voice. I tried using the Waves de-essor plugin to no avail. Where there are gaps between words I was able to manually attenuate the sss's but not within sentences - you really need to re-record under better conditions or find another narrator. You could fiddle around with a notch filters. The easiest way to find the frequency band is to set it to peak and try to maximise the annoying sound then reverse to attenuate.
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freebird73717 · Man of Steel Joined: 09 Dec 2003 Location: Smallville

paudieshea
First of all welcome to the Forums!

Secondly
There is really no need to offer a reward or compensation here. Pretty much all of the regulars here answer questions for free just because they like helping people.

I didn't check out your file because I'm not great at audio so I'd be no help to you there but the others that answered are very good at that stuff so if they say that there isn't much hope to correct then I'd say you are pretty much out of luck.
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Cornucopia · Posted: Nov 04, 2009 21:44

Where's my $50???

Seriously, it would take some more tweaking to get it just right, but here is a sample of just doing this in Audition:

1. Couple of Deep & Narrow Notch filters @ ~4700Hz, ~6800Hz, ~8600Hz
2. Linear Fade-down ramps on the terminal "S"es.
3. A Dynamic FFT filter that has a broad notch cut centered at ~6300Hz (kicks in when level gets above certain dB).

There are other things you could do. Contrary to what others have said, it's NOT unusable, just a challenge.

Scott

m7s10.take3_dess.wav

EDIT: (took me about 10 minutes of fiddling, could do more with more time, and using ProTools instead)
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Xpenguin17 · Member Joined: 01 Jul 2009 Location: United States

I'm able to isolate the hissing and shrills from the rest of the audio, but I can either remove the top-freq shelf of them completely, making her sound like a typical AZN assgoblin who never pronounces plurals, or I can attenuate them, which makes them less annoying but still sounds unnatural and out of whack.

Choose.

joecass · Member Joined: 28 Jul 2007 Location: United States

there's really no way to eliminate the exaggerated sibilance that I can figure out..... using many audio software programs I have...... but I did try one thing, highlighting the ends of the sentences, and fading out the offensive
sounds to a minimum.... doesn't get rid of the problem, but sounds a bit better

edited_m7s10.wav