How to remove noise from this recording to cause the least damage?

[Bencuri]

I am trying to remove noise from a recording. The original audio is the one attached as original.mp3. I tried to remove noise myself with GoldWave, using the noise sample from the recording (noise sample.mp3). The result is my approach.mp3. Can you do it any better? In my version there is still noise, but I tried to find the balance between noise amount and damage in the sound, this is the best one I could make. If I increase the effectiveness more, the sound will start to become quite disturbed, like a low bitrate .ra or .mp3 file.

[DB83]

The question is "What is your definition of 'noise' ?"

My defininition is actual disturbance >> unusual/unexpected sequence mixed in to the real audio. Or even 'clipping' where the audio range exceeds the norm.


And while I am no audiophile, I played your original clip in audacity and it is as 'clean' as a baby's bum.

[davexnet]

I hear the slightest of hiss, almost as if it was recorded from cassette.
I couldn't hear it all through my speakers, only after I put in my ear buds.
Then your noise print confirms it. I don't think you can get it any better using this method.

[Bencuri]

But why is there that SSSSS backround noise? It is always like that when I record with the Audio Technica shotgun mic plugged into the camcorder. What generates it? When I plug a different, studio microphone (Audio Technica 2020) into the USB interface and record through it with a DAW, that is dead silent. Why is the shotgun mic with the camera so noisy?

[johns0]

Maybe cause it's a noisy microphone to begin with.

[creakndale]

When I made some initial recordings with my Tascam stereo microphone, I noticed some low level background noise when using it's High Gain setting with Level Control between 70% and 100%.

After a lot of study, I discovered this was the microphone's pre-amplifier/amplifier noise which increases with gain. Basically electronic noise. In theory, it also varies with temperature.

Here's the way I chose to combat the microphone's noise.
1) Found the quietest place in my house
2) Set up pillows all around the microphone basically setting up a nest to set the microphone in
3) Set to record in it's best recording format (.wav)
4) Set Gain: High and Level: 100% (the noisiest setting)
5) Began recording and left the room attempting to capture just the microphone's amplifier noise
6) Record for at least 30 seconds
7) Repeat steps 4, 5 and 6 for Gain: High and Level: 95%
8) Repeat for Levels: 90%, 85%, 80%, 75% and 70%

I use old Adobe Audition 1.0
1) Open the microphone's recording of Gain: High, Level: 100%
2) Using Noise Reduction, select a 10 second portion of the recording which is just the microphone's noise
3) Build a Noise Profile for Gain: High and Level: 100%
4) Save this Noise Profile to a unique (.fft) filename
5) Repeat for Levels: 95%, 90%, 85%, 80%, 75% and 70%

Now when I make a recording, I note the recording Gain and Level setting used. Load the recording into Adobe Audition. Choose Noise Reduction and Load the appropriate Noise Profile (.fft) which effectively subtracts the microphone's electronic end-to-end noise from the recording. This has produced results that I am happy with.

Maybe there's similar function within Goldwave?
creakndale

[Bencuri]

Maybe not exactly the same but similar. I will try connecting the mic just to the USB interface, if it does not have the noise it is the camcorder that adds it. But as I remember the recording setting was on Auto level, so maybe this caused the huge noise, the camcorder turned up the sensitivity. I am not sure. Not a bad idea though what you write, I will try this method if there is no solution to reduce noise other way.

[mrbass]

Noise Reduction to remove hiss, hum and increase volume on terrible audio quality of speeches / talks — played around with many different methods.

Audacity you need to get a profile of a few seconds of no talking...cumbersome. Even tried noise repellent plugin and it's impressive but couldn't figure out how to apply it even after hitting apply the changes wouldn't take effect.

In videomass (ffmpeg frontend GUI)
-c:a libopus -vbr off -b:a 32k -ar 48000 -af highpass=200,lowpass=3000,afftdn,aformat=channel_l ayouts=stereo,volume=12dB,dynaudnorm

also tried highpass=500 and lowpass=1000 and it's not bad but not great for super super noisy. But just hiss and old recordings and especially for batch processing this can't be beat.

Ultimately the one I decided I liked best is OcenAudio (free Linux, Mac, Win) installed the deb file and used it in the past for normalization.

Oceanaudio there is a manual one which I played around with and if you do choose that one I suggest you only need to change the Reduction Factor (Noise Reductor tab) say from 12dB to 20dB after you click Get Profile.

Oceanaudio Automatic Noise Reduction. First though I apply Amplitude | Gain of 200% (+6dB) or 250% (+8dB). Then apply Automatic Noise Reduction once or even twice if necessary.