Cleaning up Induction Loop recordings.

pyrotech

pyrotech

Member
After all the talk here, I grabbed a mic? off of e-bay (appears identical to the one C33 showed), and had a mess. Into Sharp minidisk.

Well all went fairly well, got hiss as expected, but don't seem to be able to remove it or rather don't seem to get the clear result I expected from listerning to some of the recordings here. Using sound forge for clean up.

Would some of those who do this on a regular basis care to give the software used and some basic settings please.
 
I use Logic Express but I am planning on purchasing the new version of Adobe Audition later this month.

There are no basic settings to use. It depends on the quality of the recording, etc... I do use the Compressor, 30-band EQ and the DJ EQ. I try and stay away from noise reduction because of the "weird" noise that it usually leaves behind.
 
Yeah- noise reduction is like salt in food. It only has a positive effect when used in small quantities.

And by the way, the induction pickups that I and the others on here use are available at Radio Shack for $8, so in the future you shouldn't need to go to ebay. Once you get into it it starts to make sense to get more pickups (for different applications- I have four at the moment).

Now I've seen some real magic worked on Induction Recordings- there are people who are really skilled and use quality softwear and can do amazing things, but for the most part it's got to sound pretty good before you edit it to get a good result. If it's too loud, to quiet, if there's to much noise or if there is interference or other imperfections, usually you just have to try again. It can take 5 or 6 tries (or more) just to get one good induction recording (as was the case with Horizons' Magic Music Mayhem IR).

Mostly what you do in post-preduction is remove a little bit of noise (a good low pass filter can sometimes do the trick) and mess with the EQ a bit- perhaps pump up the base a little or adjust for minor volume fluctuations.

For softwear, I just use Audacity (which is open source and free), but I will probably be investing in some professional softwear soon. In the end, you just have to work at it and get the hang of the pickup and what it's capabilities are. You also have to learn to adjust based on the speakers you're recording and their surroundings.

Keep at it!
 
Thanks for the imput guys.

C33, No Radio Shack in UK,

I used a preset dehiss etc, Think I'll go the softly approach with EQ, see if that does.

There again it could be you two are like a couple of old cooks and guard your pesto recipe very closely.

I just thought/hoped you might have a general macro, but I suppose every loud speaker gives off its own vibes.
 
No secrets to keep from my end. It really depends on the speaker and the overall quality you are working with. But I do usually use the three tools I mentioned above in most of my edits.
 
i use soundtrack pro's noise reduction in limited amounts and then some equalizer. the important thing to remember is that in long recordings you can't just select the whole thing and tell it to reduce noise. There are likely big changes in the audio at some point and you have to treat each part on its own because the noise patterns will be different.
 
pyrotech said:
There again it could be you two are like a couple of old cooks and guard your pesto recipe very closely.

I just thought/hoped you might have a general macro, but I suppose every loud speaker gives off its own vibes.
Click to expand...

No secrets here. The more people out there making recordings, the better. Recording and editing are two different skills and getting the hang of them takes time.

Also, it's not so much the speaker a lot of the time but what's around it. Wires, cellphones, electronic devices and ESPECIALLY televisions can throw off noise and other weird sounds that can ruin a recording, and be very difficult to edit out. If you are recording near a television (as in a speaker that is part of a television) you basically are out of luck; they throw off so much noise that the sound you are trying to record will be buried.

Another important thing is volume. Too close to the voice coil of the speaker and it can overpower the mic, which will sound bad and be nearly impossible to edit out, and too far away and the sound will be to quiet, making it difficult to extricate from the general noise induction usually picks up. Always try and record a few seconds of clean noise so that you have a baseline you can start from in removing it.

I plan- one of these days- to produce a video podcast that will be all about recording at the Disney Theme Parks, from Audio to Video, and including things like induction as well as binaural and such.
 
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