Izotope or other denoise

[Aspiring]

I record in my office space in my house and don't have many options to reduce the ambient noise much beyond what I already have.

Below is a recording I did over the holidays. Normally I would use a noise gate at the beginning to achieve silence.

I left the noise in this time for getting ideas on how well denoisers might work for me on this type of noise. ( Or other suggestions on how to reduce it)

How well does izotope work for denoising this kind of background? How much impact does that type of plug in have on the recorded sound?


Listen to Silent-16.mp3 by Ron Radko on #SoundCloud
https://soundcloud.com/ron-radko/sil...social_sharing

[jim1960]

Izotope RX is easily the most popular de-noise program. It's not cheap but it works. There are some others out there of varying effectivenesss but I've yet to hear anyone say "So and so works better than Izotope RX." I think this is a good case where the "buy once" philosophy should prevail.

[jim1960]

I just noticed RX is on sale for $99 on this page. Add it to the cart from that link. When I clicked through to the product page the price doubled.

[Doug Young]

Yes, iZotope will clean up that background hiss easily. You also have some 60Hz hum, which it will also handle, as well as squeeks, chair noises, and so on, if you choose to remove those. I did a quick pass on the background noise and 60hz hum, and will PM you a link to the cleaned up track.

Personally, I don't think this amount of noise is a huge deal unless your making a commercial release. I would not use a noise gate on acoustic guitar, it's likely to cut off tails. Just trim the beginning in a DAW to get rid of the clear intro noise. A bigger issue I hear on this recording is probably from your room acoustics in general. The sound is rather harsh, probably from room reflections. You might try a different room, different location in the room, or preferably some room treatement. Mic placement might also help.

[Aspiring]

Originally Posted by Doug Young

Yes, iZotope will clean up that background hiss easily. You also have some 60Hz hum, which it will also handle, as well as squeeks, chair noises, and so on, if you choose to remove those. I did a quick pass on the background noise and 60hz hum, and will PM you a link to the cleaned up track.



Personally, I don't think this amount of noise is a huge deal unless your making a commercial release. I would not use a noise gate on acoustic guitar, it's likely to cut off tails. Just trim the beginning in a DAW to get rid of the clear intro noise. A bigger issue I hear on this recording is probably from your room acoustics in general. The sound is rather harsh, probably from room reflections. You might try a different room, different location in the room, or preferably some room treatement. Mic placement might also help.

Thanks for that it clearly does clean up the noise. Looks like I am buying some more recording software

Per your point on the overall tone, yes I'm sure there are a ton of room reflections. It is an untreated small office space with several windows and multiple guitars hanging on the walls. The only absorption is all my clutter

It is also the first time I have recorded that guitar and it has old strings so microphone placement and others could definitely help. It sounds harsher to me in the recording as well.

I have been reading about room and space and the impact. This may have been enough inspiration to get off my butt and start looking into that. It wouldn't hurt for me to add sound isolation to the windows and maybe some bass traps to deaden the outside noise for when I work my day job anyway.

I am still trying to track down the 60hz.

[KevWind]

Originally Posted by Aspiring

Per your point on the overall tone, yes I'm sure there are a ton of room reflections. It is an untreated small office space with several windows and multiple guitars hanging on the walls. The only absorption is all my clutter :)


I have been reading about room and space and the impact. This may have been enough inspiration to get off my butt and start looking into that. It wouldn't hurt for me to add sound isolation to the windows and maybe some bass traps to deaden the outside noise for when I work my day job anyway.

I am still trying to track down the 60hz.

So to clarify
At the risk of coming off as pedantic The correct terminology for the correct concept is fairly important to aid in a getting a basic clearer understanding of the elements involved in room acoustics.

There are different and distinct concepts (which can interact somewhat ) but need to considered separately in the specific and correct context

The two overall concepts
#1 room reflections
#2 room isolation

The three mitigation concepts

#1 isolation. To block outside noise from coming in
#2 diffusion To direct sound waves in different directions
#3 absorption. To slow down/decrease, sound energy

For example "room clutter" . Any clutter that is hard surfaced clutter (like guitars hanging on walls ) may provide some diffusion but no absorption

For windows any absorption (like thick curtains) or absorption panels placed in front of windows will help with reflections but will be only provide small marginal help, with isolation

And the same is true with Bass traps they help a fair amount with low end reflections but will only contribute a pretty small amount to isolation

The hardest/most expensive thing to address in room acoustics is isolation from outside noise. Which addressed with what is called -decoupling (pretty difficult in most home recording situations For example a "wall within a wall" is the most effective method and the one used by many/most commercial recording studio's

Diffusion and Absorption are much easier and less expensive for home recordists.

But back to the OP. yes Izoptope RX (if not overused ) can be pretty effective for some types of noise reduction

[Bob Womack]

Hi Ron!

I saw your question last night when I was home from work at the studio and when I got back to work this morning I thought I'd take a few minutes to give you an idea of what's possible with good plug-ins. Because your clip wasn't downloadable I just played back the analog outputs of my Mac into the DAW and recorded your clip. What you will hear are clips trimmed to the same start and end as yours. This was a quick and dirty deal involving about ten minutes.

Firstly, I normalized the clip to make operations easier. Next, I employed iZotope 10 (I haven't gotten around to updating to 11 yet) Spectral De-Noise to your clip. Thankfully you started recording and left a couple of seconds of room tone at the head of your clip. What I am hearing in those two seconds is typical air handler noise, which Spectral De-Noise excels at. I highlighted the couple of second of room tone, created a loop, ran it, and placed Spectral De-noise into learn mode so it could create a noise reduction algorithm base on your room. I then played the DAW and tweaked the "Threshold" and "Reduction" controls in De-Noise to get as much reduction as possible without artifacts in the guitar sound. Here is what resulted:

CLIP 1

Next, because you were wondering in a later post what could be done about the low-end rise, I added F6 RTA Stereo dynamic EQ. Reading the real time display, I identified three frequency ranges where the the bottom end was a bit overbearing: 110hz, 242hz, and 510hz. This wasn't scientific and is only a quick auditory choice. I set the dynamic EQ to reduce at those frequencies only when they crossed a certain threshold. I left the static EQ flat in order to maintain as much of the character of the guitar as possible. Again, this is quick and dirty, but it reduces the low end rise at bit. I can hear that I went too far on the 110hz, but it isn't meant to be perfect but just a demonstration. The result:

CLIP 2

So, this should give you an idea of what is possible and I hop it helps!

All the best,

Bob

[broy]

Originally Posted by Bob Womack

Hi Ron!

I saw your question last night when I was home from work at the studio and when I got back to work this morning I thought I'd take a few minutes to give you an idea of what's possible with good plug-ins. Because your clip wasn't downloadable I just played back the analog outputs of my Mac into the DAW and recorded your clip. What you will hear are clips trimmed to the same start and end as yours. This was a quick and dirty deal involving about ten minutes.

Firstly, I normalized the clip to make operations easier. Next, I employed iZotope 10 (I haven't gotten around to updating to 11 yet) Spectral De-Noise to your clip. Thankfully you started recording and left a couple of seconds of room tone at the head of your clip. What I am hearing in those two seconds is typical air handler noise, which Spectral De-Noise excels at. I highlighted the couple of second of room tone, created a loop, ran it, and placed Spectral De-noise into learn mode so it could create a noise reduction algorithm base on your room. I then played the DAW and tweaked the "Threshold" and "Reduction" controls in De-Noise to get as much reduction as possible without artifacts in the guitar sound. Here is what resulted:

CLIP 1

Next, because you were wondering in a later post what could be done about the low-end rise, I added F6 RTA Stereo dynamic EQ. Reading the real time display, I identified three frequency ranges where the the bottom end was a bit overbearing: 110hz, 242hz, and 510hz. This wasn't scientific and is only a quick auditory choice. I set the dynamic EQ to reduce at those frequencies only when they crossed a certain threshold. I left the static EQ flat in order to maintain as much of the character of the guitar as possible. Again, this is quick and dirty, but it reduces the low end rise at bit. I can hear that I went too far on the 110hz, but it isn't meant to be perfect but just a demonstration. The result:

CLIP 2

So, this should give you an idea of what is possible and I hop it helps!

All the best,

Bob

Pretty drastic difference, from the OP to clip 1, then from clip 1 to clip 2... especially for 10 mins work. (Maybe 10 mins work with 35 yrs experience backing it up?)

[TBman]

Originally Posted by broy

Pretty drastic difference, from the OP to clip 1, then from clip 1 to clip 2... especially for 10 mins work. (Maybe 10 mins work with 35 yrs experience backing it up?)

No, it's not a big deal, the software does the work. The thing with Izotope's Spectral denoise is not to use too much. The A or B setting should be all that is needed. 99% of the time I use the "A" setting, but I have a quiet recording area with room treatments.

[Aspiring]

@Bob Womack thanks for taking the time both to play with my clip and provide the detailed explanation above. Eq is another area that I have not played with much. Dynamic eq wasn't even something I was aware of.

I am on a work trip at the moment so I can only listen through Bluetooth headphones but can already hear some of what you described above. Particularly in the bass area. I know from previous experiments doing sound sweeps in the room as I was testing my monitor placements the room has several strong resonances and if I recall correctly they were near the frequencies you identified.

I have now purchased Izotope rx. The above price of $99 is currently available. The trick is that it is a crossgrade price where the fresh install is 199. However I discovered from online posts that installing one of their free products counts as meeting the requirements for cross grade pricing and that worked for me.

I really appreciate all the feedback from those in this thread.

[Aspiring]

Quick update for anyone that is curious.

Here is a recording with izotope rx standard and static eq. Same room same guitar different mic location and position relative to guitar.

Still need to find the dynamic eq plug in that I want to try. And also work on room treatment.

I was shocked however how much difference in tonal balance I managed with just the changes above.
Listen to God Rest Ye Merry Scotsman by Ron Radko on #SoundCloud
https://on.soundcloud.com/MSYsZ

[runamuck]

Originally Posted by Aspiring

Quick update for anyone that is curious.

Here is a recording with izotope rx standard and static eq. Same room same guitar different mic location and position relative to guitar.

Still need to find the dynamic eq plug in that I want to try. And also work on room treatment.

I was shocked however how much difference in tonal balance I managed with just the changes above.
Listen to God Rest Ye Merry Scotsman by Ron Radko on #SoundCloud
https://on.soundcloud.com/MSYsZ

Your link is not working for me.

[Aspiring]

Originally Posted by runamuck

Your link is not working for me.

Try it now I had an extra space in it.

[KevWind]

Originally Posted by Aspiring

Try it now I had an extra space in it.

Still not working says = Invalid Dynamic Link
You can just copy then paste the share address (Share button below your song on your SoundCloud tracks page) in between the the Sound Cloud brackets
(Red arrow) that open when you click the AGF SoundCloud tool the far right in the tool bar above the reply box ( Blue arrow)

[Aspiring]

Yes pasting the link but between url tags was what I had done before.

Here's a fresh insert via the desktop browser and the soundcloud tags