I’m typing up interviews that were done in a busy cafe with music on in the background. What’s the best way for me to cancel out the background noise to just focus on the spoken words?

Using iTunes or QuickTime alongside Word.

The Doors ‘Break On Through’ just came on. It’s tough!

A quick and dirty solution might be to use the iTunes equaliser set to ‘spoken word’ then manually cut any annoying frequencies if that doesn’t help.

You need two fully working CB radios and a basic knowledge of the ‘squelch’ control.

How loud is the background compared to the speech?

Must be a really simple digital solution, I’d have thought?

Trying the iTunes equalizer plus manual adjustments now. Helping a bit but then the music has gone off too. When the music comes back on the voices get louder to compensate and it becomes a right mess.

Background noise volume is almost as loud as the spoken bits that i’m trying to type up.

You could try using audacity’s noise removal function to cancel it out. Not sure how well it’ll work with the randomness of a cafe, but it might be worth a try.

Within audacity, there is a tool which you can use to identify a certain frequency of noise and then remove it.

Edit, as above.

I might be able to help.

send linkies to your audio here: helpmybike@yahoo.co.uk

therealhoops, ygm.

I’ve had a listen and there’s no quick fix I’m afraid. The background noise isn’t a constant, not even close and it’s very loud compared to the signal. Noise reduction won’t work without removing a substantial part of the voice as well 🙁
You’re trying to take the sugar out of a cup of tea. The best solution would be to knob around with the eq settings and narrow the frequency window to best fit your headphones/speakers.

soz

TRH- Off topic Q:

Where can I get a preamp with built-in input switching and a variable crossover/phase for a line-level sub, cheap?

I want to build one, but I think I’ll not have the time.

Setup: 2 stereo speakers, one folded horn sub with two KEF B139b drivers. One 6-channel poweramp.

Izotope RX4 is a good bit of software, you can grab a free trial and have a play around if you want.

I haven’t heard the audio however, and software can only accomplish so much, but RX4 is a lot better than a noise gate.

therealhoops…..

is that sAdie?

Gof – ART do a voice channel with what you need which is quite cheap. Focusrite make the Platinum which is alright but I’ve had reliance problems with Focusrite stuff.

Izotope and Cedar are v.good but I think even they’d struggle with the source material.

Pook – yes, I customized a PCM8 to run alongside ProTool, SF, Audition, Audacity etc etc. Sadie is old but it’s still the only E-to-E editor that can chop on the fly.

Cheers!