Audio cleanup tool, which one?

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4EvrYng

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Audio cleanup tool, which one?

PostWed Jul 27, 2022 12:48 am

I have need to deal with audio recordings whose quality is bad … err … “suboptimal”, like one attached to this post, and make them sound better. Target is average social media content creation with mixture of dialog and music (focus isn’t on music), I have zero knowledge of audio processing and I am just trying to do acceptable job without going down the rabbit’s hole.

Which tool(s) you would recommend for such task to a dummy … err … absolute beginner like me? I’m on zero income so more inexpensive (hopefully free) the better. I’m aware of Izotope and that Elements RX / Elements Suite are on sale for only $29 / $49, which I could afford, -BUT- …

a) Out of 6 features Izotope advertises are geared for content creators (repair assistant, voice de-noise, loudness control, dialogue de-reverb, breath control, and de-plosive) only first two are included in Elements, rest of them require Standard version which at $299 would be very VERY hard sell to me, and I don’t have knowledge to be able to tell whether that means getting Elements wouldn’t work at all for me.

b) I don’t have knowledge of alternatives out there that could be good enough for majority of my task at lower price point than Izotope Standard.

So your guidance will be appreciated. Also, I realize BM forums are mainly video oriented forum so if you have a suggestion for better places to ask this question at that will be appreciated too.
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Charles Bennett

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Re: Audio cleanup tool, which one?

PostWed Jul 27, 2022 1:01 pm

Before buying anything you should try some of the audio tools in Fairlight such as the Noise Reduction plugin. The one thing you wont be able to cure is the awful distortion in the audio.
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Re: Audio cleanup tool, which one?

PostWed Jul 27, 2022 6:47 pm

Charles Bennett wrote:Before buying anything you should try some of the audio tools in Fairlight such as the Noise Reduction plugin. The one thing you wont be able to cure is the awful distortion in the audio.

I already tried using Fairlight and, as absolute beginner that knows nothing and doesn't know where to start, ended up overwhelmed. I need something that has KISS feature, training wheels "assistant" holding my hand guiding me.
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Alex=Alex

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Re: Audio cleanup tool, which one?

PostWed Jul 27, 2022 6:55 pm

I would suggest looking up youtube tutorials. Your not going to get anywhere without a basic understanding of how this stuff works.
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4EvrYng

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Re: Audio cleanup tool, which one?

PostWed Jul 27, 2022 8:47 pm

Alex=Alex wrote:I would suggest looking up youtube tutorials. Your not going to get anywhere without a basic understanding of how this stuff works.

I understand that. In the meantime which tool(s) you would recommend for someone that is an absolute beginner?
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Re: Audio cleanup tool, which one?

PostThu Jul 28, 2022 12:18 am

The stock plugins that come with resolve. They are great for beginners. All the good plugins cost money, and you should never spend money as a beginner if all the tools are for free. Learn the stuff you have already then once youve outgrown that or do it proffesional buy the paid stuff.
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Charles Bennett

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Re: Audio cleanup tool, which one?

PostThu Jul 28, 2022 9:03 am

Try the Noise Reduction plugin in the Fairlight page. How to use it is detailed on page 3669 of the current Reference Manual accessible in the Help dropdown menu. How to use Audio Plugins in general is explained from page 3641.

You will find that Blackmagic's own tutorials are good too. These are also available in the Help dropdown menu by clicking on DaVinci Resolve Training.
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Re: Audio cleanup tool, which one?

PostThu Jul 28, 2022 3:09 pm

Another alternative is Acon Digital, which provides many of the same kinds of tools as Izotope RX at a fraction of the price. https://acondigital.com/products/

The Restoration Suite has some tools that would be useful, or you can buy individual plugins as needed.

I find Acon's tools more intuitive than Izotope's although there's a lot more training material available for Izotope RX.

None of this stuff is simple one-click fixes, though: it has to be done carefully to avoid degrading the overall audio quality and introducing artifacts. It takes time to learn, whether you're using the plugins that come with Fairlight or third-party plugins.
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4EvrYng

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Re: Audio cleanup tool, which one?

PostSat Aug 20, 2022 11:23 pm

Charles Bennett wrote:Try the Noise Reduction plugin in the Fairlight page. How to use it is detailed on page 3669 of the current Reference Manual accessible in the Help dropdown menu. How to use Audio Plugins in general is explained from page 3641.

You will find that Blackmagic's own tutorials are good too. These are also available in the Help dropdown menu by clicking on DaVinci Resolve Training.

Thank you for your suggestion. However, I feel the need to ask you this (and I hope you won’t get insulted by my question): If you had a need to get a car and immediately start using it, had zero experience driving stick shift, walked into place full of knowledgeable car people, and asked “I need help selecting car with automatic transmission, which one you would suggest for an absolute beginner like me” how would you feel if one of them answered “Learn how to drive stick shift, it is on the page so-and-so of the manual”? Would you feel that person was helpful or something else?
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Re: Audio cleanup tool, which one?

PostSat Aug 20, 2022 11:33 pm

Brad Hurley wrote:Another alternative is Acon Digital, which provides many of the same kinds of tools as Izotope RX at a fraction of the price. https://acondigital.com/products/

The Restoration Suite has some tools that would be useful, or you can buy individual plugins as needed.

I find Acon's tools more intuitive than Izotope's although there's a lot more training material available for Izotope RX.

None of this stuff is simple one-click fixes, though: it has to be done carefully to avoid degrading the overall audio quality and introducing artifacts. It takes time to learn, whether you're using the plugins that come with Fairlight or third-party plugins.

Hi Brad, sorry for (very) delayed reply and thank you for staying on topic :) and pointing me to Acon, I wasn't aware of them. In the end I downloaded evals for both Acon and Izotope and after trying to use them following became obvious:

1) Izotope Elements wouldn't be enough
2) Izotope's Repair Assistant wouldn't save me on its own even if I shelled out for version that has it
3) Just like you said even though both tools seem very capable they still wouldn't be simple one-click fixes

Thank you again!
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Re: Audio cleanup tool, which one?

PostSun Aug 21, 2022 3:24 pm

Okay, good luck! I listened to that example you provided and as Charles noted it's very distorted; it sounds like whatever was used to record the music wasn't set at proper levels and everything is clipping. Izotope does have a declip tool that attempts to reconstruct destroyed waveforms, but in a case like this I doubt it would be useful: almost everything in your recording is clipped.

If you have to use that piece of audio, I'd go in the other direction and distort it further to make it sound like an old wire-cylinder recording or '78 RPM album...it's actually not far off at this point.
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Re: Audio cleanup tool, which one?

PostSun Aug 21, 2022 5:52 pm

Brad Hurley wrote:I listened to that example you provided and as Charles noted it's very distorted; it sounds like whatever was used to record the music wasn't set at proper levels and everything is clipping. Izotope does have a declip tool that attempts to reconstruct destroyed waveforms, but in a case like this I doubt it would be useful: almost everything in your recording is clipped.

If you have to use that piece of audio, I'd go in the other direction and distort it further to make it sound like an old wire-cylinder recording or '78 RPM album...it's actually not far off at this point.

Yeah, I tried to declip it and, just like you expected, it improved it very little but couldn't walk on the water and perform miracles so in the end I did same thing as your idea, made "parody" out of that sound and moved on.

In the retrospective I think I know what triggered it and how to make sure it doesn't happen again, lesson learned, I just need to test my theory with new workflow in the field.

Thank you again!
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Charles Bennett

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Re: Audio cleanup tool, which one?

PostMon Aug 22, 2022 9:31 pm

Alexander, as you stated you are an "absolute beginner", I made a suggestion as to what plugin to try. So how would you know how to use it without instructions? That is why I gave the page references in the manual which do just that. Your car analogy doesn't apply here.
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Re: Audio cleanup tool, which one?

PostTue Aug 23, 2022 12:19 am

Charles Bennett wrote:Alexander, as you stated you are an "absolute beginner", I made a suggestion as to what plugin to try. So how would you know how to use it without instructions? That is why I gave the page references in the manual which do just that. Your car analogy doesn't apply here.

Charles, my apology if I should've communicated this better, or if I misunderstood what you said, but I thought my post makes it clear I am an absolute beginner that doesn't know what he is doing, has ended up overwhelmed with what is included in Resolve, and is thus looking for third party plugin with (much) easier startup curve.

Thus I, with all due respect, still don't understand why you feel it makes sense to point me back to Resolve, especially when terse manual for plugin you pointed me to contains things like:

"- Ratio: Controls the attack time of the signal profile relative to the attack time of the noise profile.
A faster ratio detects and preserves transients in speech more easily, but the resulting speech
profile is less accurate.

– Frequency Smoothing: Smooths the resulting signal in the frequency domain to compensate for
harmonic ringing in the signal after the noise has been extracted.

– Time Smoothing: A toggle button enables smoothing of the resulting signal in the time
domain as well."

Do you really expect person that already said they have found it overwhelming cause it is all Latin to them to figure out what exactly that means and how exactly to use that plugin based on those several sentences?
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Re: Audio cleanup tool, which one?

PostWed Aug 24, 2022 9:26 pm

You were asking about plugins presumably for use in Resolve. All plugins, especially restoration ones, have a learning curve and the only way to know how to use them is read their instructions. Remember, Resolve is professional level software and can be overwhelming for the inexperienced as it assumes a certain level of knowledge by users.
I have taken no offense from your replies. Just trying to help.
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Re: Audio cleanup tool, which one?

PostThu Aug 25, 2022 5:52 pm

Charles Bennett wrote:You were asking about plugins presumably for use in Resolve. All plugins, especially restoration ones, have a learning curve and the only way to know how to use them is read their instructions. Remember, Resolve is professional level software and can be overwhelming for the inexperienced as it assumes a certain level of knowledge by users.
I have taken no offense from your replies. Just trying to help.

I'm glad you don't take offense to my replies.

I agree that all tools in the world have a learning curve and require learning. Question is HOW STEEP of a learning curve and HOW HIGH first steps are.

I see you too say "Resolve can be overwhelming for the inexperienced as it assumes a certain level of knowledge by users". THAT EXACTLY was/is my point.

Thus I continue to be perplexed why you, if you realize all of that, would still go and say "use plugins in Resolve" to person that clearly states he is overwhelmed with it and is looking for something with easier curve, and would still consider that trying to help. And I will leave it at that.
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Re: Audio cleanup tool, which one?

PostThu Aug 25, 2022 9:39 pm

Well, you haven't said you are not going to use Resolve so I was making an assumption. Even though it seems overwhelming there are plenty of learning materials available including the excelent free ones from Blackmagic which you will find here. https://www.blackmagicdesign.com/uk/products/davinciresolve/training

There are some simpler NLEs available, such as Filmora, Openshot, Shotcut, etc. Some are free some not. One of these may suit a beginner better than Resolve.

For audio only work have a look at the free Audacity DAW. You can work on audio and import the finished result into Resolve or whatever NLE you use. I should point out that this is not a program I use.
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Re: Audio cleanup tool, which one?

PostFri Aug 26, 2022 5:04 pm

Charles Bennett wrote:There are some simpler NLEs available, such as Filmora, Openshot, Shotcut, etc. Some are free some not. One of these may suit a beginner better than Resolve.

For audio only work have a look at the free Audacity DAW. You can work on audio and import the finished result into Resolve or whatever NLE you use.

However, I wasn't asking for NLE replacement to Resolve, nor for DAW, I was asking for -audio cleanup- tool in particular. I feel this is where we should agree we somehow have communication breakdown and leave it at that.
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Re: Audio cleanup tool, which one?

PostFri Aug 26, 2022 6:40 pm

4EvrYng wrote:If you had a need to get a car and immediately start using it, had zero experience driving stick shift, walked into place full of knowledgeable car people, and asked “I need help selecting car with automatic transmission, which one you would suggest for an absolute beginner like me” how would you feel if one of them answered “Learn how to drive stick shift, it is on the page so-and-so of the manual”? Would you feel that person was helpful or something else?

I, for one, would feel that person was helpful. However, I think that your analogy with that "car's automatic transmission" is too simple anyway. Audio tools are more complicated than that. Maybe your expectations re ease of use were to high. If any car analogy would work here, I guess it should be something about getting a driver's license first. You won't get the license in one day.
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Re: Audio cleanup tool, which one?

PostFri Aug 26, 2022 6:53 pm

As far as I am concerned, the sample of audio you provided is really no task for beginner if you want a really good quality restoration process. This is not some simple noise reduction stuff. And no automatic processes will work it out fully for you. I tried to use Repair Assistant in RX 8 on that sample, then automatic mastering in Ozone 9. Sounds a whole lot better, but not very great anyway.

Take a «look»:

https://drive.goo gle.com/file/d/1Aus3KcwXbbEkdBxnb9KZNnehb0bQXP8d/view?usp=sharing (remove the space)

That's what near best-in-the-market applications would do in an automatic mode for this kind of audio. To get this piece to sound nice, I guess, one should dig it quite a bit with some knowledge of the process.

My best advice is to use some good stock music if you only have such recordings... Or make it look like this is style, make it sound ok in this broken style with simple tools like EQ. Most of all — make it quiet! :) In Fairlight there are many sound tools, but again you need to know them... But I don't know your whole situation and what kind of an end result you want.

That's my thoughts. I am not a sound engineer though, but I had some pretty heavy sound restoration practice.
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Re: Audio cleanup tool, which one?

PostFri Aug 26, 2022 7:05 pm

Sounds nice :-) This is hardrock now. The musicians were just blowing their instruments through some softly overdriven guitar tube amps in AC/DC style.

The previous, fully distorted sample was the heavy metal version.
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Re: Audio cleanup tool, which one?

PostFri Aug 26, 2022 7:13 pm

A little follow up to my post. One of the main problems with the audio that you included was clipping. You can use soft clip in Fairlight. Without clipping it sounds at least bearable, maybe acceptable for you goals. That was the first thing RX 8 Repair Assistant made — de-clipped it.

So first you need to de-clip it in Resolve (there are simple tutorials for this), then do some EQ work and it would be passable (maybe!!!).
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Re: Audio cleanup tool, which one?

PostFri Aug 26, 2022 7:23 pm

Hardy- wrote:Sounds nice :-) This is hardrock now. The musicians were just blowing their instruments through some softly overdriven guitar tube amps in AC/DC style.

The previous, fully distorted sample was the heavy metal version.


Well, I hope topic creator is going for some heavy metal results :D

Full restoration of this piece would make a good evening for sound enthusiast, maybe resampling the whole thing with some crazy synths and plugins...
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Re: Audio cleanup tool, which one?

PostFri Aug 26, 2022 11:39 pm

Here is an answer without an ******* reply:

Clarity Vx

It's less than 40 bucks and it can pull clean audio out of a bad recording. Or make an okay recording really good. It is an extremely simple app. Note that option 1 will keep background voices where option 2 will try to fully isolate the main speaker through AI.

You mentioned izotope and that's also really good. The thing that drives me crazy (and believe me, I've let them know LOL) is that they bundle everything. So if you want a great dialogue tool you have to buy a bunch of music creation software that you probably don't want or need. I ended up getting RX8 elements for somewhere around $100 and it does a good deal of what I needed...and came with a bunch of software I didn't. What I particularly like about this software is the de-clicker. It'll automatically remove the gross saliva clicks we make when we talk. You can preview it working where you only hear the clicks and it sounds like the Predator. Don't forget to uncheck the 'clicks only' button though or you'll only render out the clicks.

Both of these install and operate as VSTs right inside Resolve. You can also bounce your audio out to the full izotope program as well then when you close and save, it automatically imports back to Resolve (overwriting the original track so consider bouncing a copy.)

Or, as everyone likes to say here: Learn the software. Work through its multitude of glitches. Read the 5,000 page manual and be able to cite any word from any page. Study audio for 4 years in college. Get 25 years of professional experience. I had to do all of this so you should too.

Geez.
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Re: Audio cleanup tool, which one?

PostSat Aug 27, 2022 12:28 am

GalinMcMahon wrote:Here is an answer without an ******* reply:

Clarity Vx

It's less than 40 bucks and it can pull clean audio out of a bad recording. Or make an okay recording really good. It is an extremely simple app. Note that option 1 will keep background voices where option 2 will try to fully isolate the main speaker through AI.

You mentioned izotope and that's also really good. The thing that drives me crazy (and believe me, I've let them know LOL) is that they bundle everything. So if you want a great dialogue tool you have to buy a bunch of music creation software that you probably don't want or need. I ended up getting RX8 elements for somewhere around $100 and it does a good deal of what I needed...and came with a bunch of software I didn't. What I particularly like about this software is the de-clicker. It'll automatically remove the gross saliva clicks we make when we talk. You can preview it working where you only hear the clicks and it sounds like the Predator. Don't forget to uncheck the 'clicks only' button though or you'll only render out the clicks.

Both of these install and operate as VSTs right inside Resolve. You can also bounce your audio out to the full izotope program as well then when you close and save, it automatically imports back to Resolve (overwriting the original track so consider bouncing a copy.)

Or, as everyone likes to say here: Learn the software. Work through its multitude of glitches. Read the 5,000 page manual and be able to cite any word from any page. Study audio for 4 years in college. Get 25 years of professional experience. I had to do all of this so you should too.

Geez.


Well, if you saw my post, I demonstrated what Repair Assistant in full version of RX 8 and automatic mastering in Ozone 9 can do to recording that author included in his starting message as an example of bad audio he has to deal with.

You can hear some difference, but not that match.

Because that audio sample is in really bad shape. It is not just clicks and little noises here and there, it is very low quality recording overall. Sounds like a very low bitrate sound with huge amount of clipping. You can't just simply make it sound good in few clicks, like author wants. I tried with arguably the best software, and it IS better now, but its not that much of a difference, because more work is needed even if you own RX 8.

You need to dig a little and maybe watch some tutorials, read RX 8 documentation, maybe not 5000 page manuals (what's wrong with that, btw? :D)

Again, I dont know exactly what author wants — so maybe it is good enough for his purposes. I recommended what I would do in my posts.

With that being said, I can confirm that RX 8 is a top notch. You can save a lot with it without huge effort. De-clicker is awesome, like many other things there. De-noiser is simple and brilliant. It is my go-to application for sound post. You don't need to have 25 years of experience to achieve miracles with it.

Yes, Izotope stuff is great and I recommend it, it works very well within Resolve.

But have you seen (heard?) that sample author provided?

Man, to work with that being a novice — it's hard, no matter what software you own. It is hardcore audio restoration, not just click or noise removal. And author wants it to be done with automatic assistant! So people pointed at need of some learning, and that is logical.

It is somewhat like trying to make 240p video created with 0.3 megapixel camera to look like something that is shot with Ursa 12k.

Better to mask and stylize it, or something, in case of audio file included at the beginning.
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Re: Audio cleanup tool, which one?

PostSat Aug 27, 2022 5:31 pm

Hardy- wrote:I, for one, would feel that person was helpful.

That is where I, obviously, felt differently as he was pointing me back to direction I was already clearly stating isn't working for me, and thus wasn't helping.

Hardy- wrote:Maybe your expectations re ease of use were to high. If any car analogy would work here, I guess it should be something about getting a driver's license first. You won't get the license in one day.

Maybe they are. But if we want to use "getting driver's license first" analogy I got mine on a stick shift car and since then I have thought others on both manual and automatic. Those that started with manual all had much harder time and it took them longer than those that started automatic.
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Re: Audio cleanup tool, which one?

PostSat Aug 27, 2022 6:04 pm

Nikolay wrote:As far as I am concerned, the sample of audio you provided is really no task for beginner if you want a really good quality restoration process. This is not some simple noise reduction stuff. And no automatic processes will work it out fully for you.

I too came to that conclusion. So in the end my goal is to find something that will make clips better sounding (even if it can't perform miracle on this particular one) without me having to spend too much time learning how.

Nikolay wrote:I tried to use Repair Assistant in RX 8 on that sample, then automatic mastering in Ozone 9. Sounds a whole lot better, but not very great anyway. Take a «look»:

Wow, that is a noticeable improvement for a clip that would require a miracle. It is MUCH better than what I was able to accomplish experimenting with eval of RX. Not knowing anything I didn't try to use Ozone's automatic mastering after RX. Now I will give it another try after RX/Ozone 10 are out.

Nikolay wrote:My best advice is to use some good stock music if you only have such recordings... Or make it look like this is style, make it sound ok in this broken style with simple tools like EQ.

That was my thought process too. First I was considering finding clean replacement track. Then I decided to make clip a "parody", as if broken sound was part of style, learn the lesson what (not) to do next time, and just move on.

Thank you VERY much!
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Re: Audio cleanup tool, which one?

PostSat Aug 27, 2022 6:30 pm

GalinMcMahon wrote:Here is an answer without an ******* reply: Clarity Vx

Thank you! I wasn't aware of it, I will definitely have to give it a try because KISS is what I am trying to accomplish, just something that will relatively easily make (sub)par recordings sound good enough to average person on average social media.

GalinMcMahon wrote:You mentioned izotope and that's also really good. The thing that drives me crazy (and believe me, I've let them know LOL) is that they bundle everything. So if you want a great dialogue tool you have to buy a bunch of music creation software that you probably don't want or need.

I am afraid that they won't listen to you, upselling to more than one needs through bundles seems to be their sale strategy. On the positive side I heard last year they had unbelievable discount on Black Friday for bundle that had practically everything so I'm hoping they will do same this year too.

GalinMcMahon wrote:Or, as everyone likes to say here: Learn the software. Work through its multitude of glitches. Read the 5,000 page manual and be able to cite any word from any page. Study audio for 4 years in college. Get 25 years of professional experience. I had to do all of this so you should too.

Geez.

LOL
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4EvrYng

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Re: Audio cleanup tool, which one?

PostSat Aug 27, 2022 7:02 pm

Nikolay wrote:It is not just clicks and little noises here and there, it is very low quality recording overall. Sounds like a very low bitrate sound with huge amount of clipping.

Recording was 24-bit 48KHz -BUT- gain on microphone accidentally ended up way too high. Number of lessons learned for next time.

Nikolay wrote:But have you seen (heard?) that sample author provided? Man, to work with that being a novice — it's hard, no matter what software you own. It is hardcore audio restoration, not just click or noise removal. And author wants it to be done with automatic assistant! ... It is somewhat like trying to make 240p video created with 0.3 megapixel camera to look like something that is shot with Ursa 12k.

While I have presented really bad clip as an example of what I needed to deal with I was not expecting a miracle, just a hope that it will end up better and good enough. I was aware that might not happen but it was still worth a try, if for no other reason than to learn what -I- might be able to accomplish in the future, and how. And few of posters (including you) helped me with that, thank you.
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Nikolay

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Re: Audio cleanup tool, which one?

PostSun Aug 28, 2022 3:16 am

4EvrYng wrote:
Nikolay wrote:It is not just clicks and little noises here and there, it is very low quality recording overall. Sounds like a very low bitrate sound with huge amount of clipping.

Recording was 24-bit 48KHz -BUT- gain on microphone accidentally ended up way too high. Number of lessons learned for next time.

Nikolay wrote:But have you seen (heard?) that sample author provided? Man, to work with that being a novice — it's hard, no matter what software you own. It is hardcore audio restoration, not just click or noise removal. And author wants it to be done with automatic assistant! ... It is somewhat like trying to make 240p video created with 0.3 megapixel camera to look like something that is shot with Ursa 12k.

While I have presented really bad clip as an example of what I needed to deal with I was not expecting a miracle, just a hope that it will end up better and good enough. I was aware that might not happen but it was still worth a try, if for no other reason than to learn what -I- might be able to accomplish in the future, and how. And few of posters (including you) helped me with that, thank you.


Good to know you got some insights out of it!

Considering clipping, yes, during recording this can happen (if you don't have 32 bit recorder... believe it or not, with it it is hard to clip anything because of its huge dynamic range... you can whisper then you can scream and everything will be recorded great, crazy times) and good de-clipping plugin is essential, in RS it's great.

Stylization is a the way sometimes, its like with bad footage — when I have it and I need to use it, I do everything I can to upscale it and then I put some analog effect (Resolve has a killer one) to make it even worse but actually better :D

In case of your audio, after de-clipping, lessening more bad sounding high frequencies with EQ would do a great deal, then maybe put some reverb, add some ambience under and gentle noise as if it is vinyl recording. There are some plugins for stylization as well. So it is actually more creative work in this sense, after you know a little about basic audio instruments and concepts
English is not my native, so there can be severe grammar pervasions
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4EvrYng

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Re: Audio cleanup tool, which one?

PostSun Aug 28, 2022 5:40 pm

Nikolay wrote:Considering clipping, yes, during recording this can happen (if you don't have 32 bit recorder... believe it or not, with it it is hard to clip anything because of its huge dynamic range... you can whisper then you can scream and everything will be recorded great, crazy times) ...

Yeah, knowing Murphy's laws ("anything that can go wrong will go wrong") I was foreseeing something like this might happen so I placed an order for 32-bit recorder but it wasn't ready before this accident occurred. God, I hate when I end up right. :lol:
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Nikolay

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Re: Audio cleanup tool, which one?

PostWed Aug 31, 2022 2:59 pm

4EvrYng wrote:
Nikolay wrote:Considering clipping, yes, during recording this can happen (if you don't have 32 bit recorder... believe it or not, with it it is hard to clip anything because of its huge dynamic range... you can whisper then you can scream and everything will be recorded great, crazy times) ...

Yeah, knowing Murphy's laws ("anything that can go wrong will go wrong") I was foreseeing something like this might happen so I placed an order for 32-bit recorder but it wasn't ready before this accident occurred. God, I hate when I end up right. :lol:


Found some information about 32 bit audio...

"24-bit audio recordings can capture a dynamic range of up to 144.5 dB. Meanwhile, 32-bit float audio can capture the absolutely ludicrous range of up to 1,528 dB. That's not only massively beyond the scope of 24-bit audio, but it's beyond the scale of what even counts as a sound on Earth"

Wow!
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Alex Silva

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Re: Audio cleanup tool, which one?

PostWed Aug 31, 2022 5:07 pm

I remember someone praising highly Nvidia RTX voice noise reduction plugin. Not sure it was in this forum, but was DaVinci related.

I think you need a Geforce RTX card.
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Re: Audio cleanup tool, which one?

PostWed Aug 31, 2022 5:12 pm

Alex Silva wrote:I remember someone praising highly Nvidia RTX voice noise reduction plugin. Not sure it was in this forum, but was DaVinci related.

I think you need a Geforce RTX card.

I thought NVidia's RTX Voice is real time "virtual microphone" plugin, not something that can be used to process what has been already recorded? Or I am wrong?
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Re: Audio cleanup tool, which one?

PostWed Aug 31, 2022 5:23 pm

There is a free VST plugin



You will need to be running Windows 10 64bit or later and this is a VST 3 plugin, so make sure your host application (DAW or video editing software) supports VST 3.


You need a 2xxx or 3xxx RTX card.
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Re: Audio cleanup tool, which one?

PostWed Aug 31, 2022 5:29 pm

Ok i have found what i remembered , it was in this forum:

viewtopic.php?f=21&t=154807
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Re: Audio cleanup tool, which one?

PostWed Aug 31, 2022 5:39 pm

Nikolay wrote:Found some information about 32 bit audio...

"24-bit audio recordings can capture a dynamic range of up to 144.5 dB. Meanwhile, 32-bit float audio can capture the absolutely ludicrous range of up to 1,528 dB. That's not only massively beyond the scope of 24-bit audio, but it's beyond the scale of what even counts as a sound on Earth"

Wow!


That quote is from this article, probably:
https://www.wired.com/story/32-bit-floa ... explained/

I think the author of that article considers "sound pressure level" and "signal to noise ratio" to be the same thing. They are not, even though both are indicated by dB units. But there are zillions of things that are indicated in dB. "dB" is just a ratio.

When talking about "sound pressure level", the suffix SPL is used: "db SPL"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decibel#Acoustics_2

The bit number has nothing to do with SPL. You can destroy human ears with 32 bit as well as with
8 bit or 2 bit. A pure rectangle audio wave needs just 1 bit and it can be so loud to make a mountain explode.

Distortion related to the bit-resolution (e.g. 16 bit) is something different; the most extreme digitial distortion occurs when the amplitude is so small that a sine curve turns into plain rectangle as there are just not enough amplitude bits available anymore to approximate the sine curve by a "stairway". The more stairway steps (bits) are available, the smoother the digitalized sine curve. So, the less bits are available for smaller amplitudes, the more distorted become sine curves at those smaller amplitudes; thus the more you need to keep your audio in the upper amplitude range. When you have more bits, you need not care that much. That's the point. -- Anyway, this has nothing to do with dB SPL.
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Nikolay

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Re: Audio cleanup tool, which one?

PostWed Aug 31, 2022 6:09 pm

Hardy- wrote:
Nikolay wrote:Found some information about 32 bit audio...

"24-bit audio recordings can capture a dynamic range of up to 144.5 dB. Meanwhile, 32-bit float audio can capture the absolutely ludicrous range of up to 1,528 dB. That's not only massively beyond the scope of 24-bit audio, but it's beyond the scale of what even counts as a sound on Earth"

Wow!


That quote is from this article, probably:
https://www.wired.com/story/32-bit-floa ... explained/

I think the author of that article considers "sound pressure level" and "signal to noise ratio" to be the same thing. They are not, even though both are indicated by dB units. But there are zillions of things that are indicated in dB. "dB" is just a ratio.

When talking about "sound pressure level", the suffix SPL is used: "db SPL"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decibel#Acoustics_2

The bit number has nothing to do with SPL. You can destroy human ears with 32 bit as well as with
8 bit or 2 bit. A pure rectangle audio wave needs just 1 bit and it can be so loud to make a mountain explode.

Distortion related to the bit-resolution (e.g. 16 bit) is something different; the most extreme digitial distortion occurs when the amplitude is so small that a sine curve turns into plain rectangle as there are just not enough amplitude bits available anymore to approximate the sine curve by a "stairway". The more stairway steps (bits) are available, the smoother the digitalized sine curve. So, the less bits are available for smaller amplitudes, the more distorted become since curves at those smaller amplitudes; thus the more you need to keep your audio in the upper amplitude range. When you have more bits, you need not care that much. That's the point. -- Anyway, this has nothing to do with dB SPL.


Very interesting comment, although I did not fully understand it (in what exactly author was wrong? did he just not specified things and confuse terms or was his conclusion wrong?). It made me more interested to research further.

There is a quote from wikipedia:

"Digital audio with undithered 20-bit quantization is theoretically capable of 120 dB dynamic range, while 24-bit digital audio affords 144 dB dynamic range.[6] Most Digital audio workstations process audio with 32-bit floating-point representation which affords even higher dynamic range and so loss of dynamic range is no longer a concern in terms of digital audio processing. Dynamic range limitations typically result from improper gain staging, recording technique including ambient noise and intentional application of dynamic range compression."

Few other quotes from other sources:

"24-bit audio -- the most common pro format today -- supports over 16 million levels of sound, which translates to 144.5 dB of dynamic range"

"32-bit float can record audio data +770 dB above 0 dBFS and -758 dB below. This gives 32-bit float recordings an incomprehensible dynamic range ..."

So the thing is not about dB, it is about how to represent dynamic range of electronic recording system relative to physical sound phenomena.

I guess author could make that comparison then?

I am a little bit confused though, not savvy at all at this area.

Interesting question is, would we ever need more resolution than 32 bit if it is that wide?
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Nikolay

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Re: Audio cleanup tool, which one?

PostWed Aug 31, 2022 6:27 pm

Alex Silva wrote:There is a free VST plugin



You will need to be running Windows 10 64bit or later and this is a VST 3 plugin, so make sure your host application (DAW or video editing software) supports VST 3.


You need a 2xxx or 3xxx RTX card.


Oh, interesting. I need to try it. Curious how it would hold up against RX noise tools.

NVIDIA has one of the best screen capture application, and it's free. Was a real relief to discover it in the ocean of semi-fraud market of these applications.
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4EvrYng

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Re: Audio cleanup tool, which one?

PostWed Aug 31, 2022 11:05 pm

Alex Silva wrote:There is a free VST plugin ... You need a 2xxx or 3xxx RTX card.

Thank you! I have 20x series card so I will have to give it a try :)
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Re: Audio cleanup tool, which one?

PostThu Sep 01, 2022 11:50 pm

If you and or Nikolay test it please give feedback.

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