Voice processing

[sweeper]

Hi,
I have a problem. I have recorded a talk from some distance with a steady fixed comcoder. I 've got all "the pleasures" of it - the sound is rather weak and noisy, and it also fluctuates in volume, when the persone moves back and forth and when he turns his face away.
Does anybody knows software which can improve the quality of the sound?

In case it can help, I have Marvel G200 and SB Live!.
I will very much appreciate your help

[This message has been edited by sweeper (edited 24 December 1999).]

[Brian Ellis]

Hi!

It is extremely difficult to put in what ain't there! Virtually any decent audio editor will allow you to jack up the sound level manually to a more or less constant level. However, it will also jack up the noise level as well. Most of the also have a noise reduction feature. What this does is to clip out the middle part of the waveform and tack the higher levels together through a filter so that the resultant harmonic distortion is not too bad. If the signal to noise ratio is, say, 50 dB and you wish to increase it to, say, 60 dB, then this is a great feature. If you start off at 20 dB and you still wish 60 dB, then you will suffer from severe losses of audio quality. An interesting question, for which I don't have the answer, is whether the noise reduction would be better before or after the level adjustment. I suspect before, but I'm not sure. Remember also that the automatic gain control on the camera will cause the noise level to go up and down as the desired signal goes down and up, so that you will not be dealing with a constant. Whatever, you have a good deal of manual work to do to make a significant improvement. Bonne chance!



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Brian (the terrible)