Get rid of high hum in background

[Anonymous]

Greetings and Salutations my friends,

Please teach me how to remove this annoying high frequency hum in the background of the sound recorded with my Audio Technica 655rt.

Here is a sample

[audio src="http://dl.dropbox.com/u/8042093/Track%201%20-%2020.wav" /]

Thank you

[Rob]

What audio editing software do you have?

You can try applying a low-pass filter. More advanced software will have a noise reduction feature that reduces the noise, but that requires that you have a few seconds of that noise alone.

[composite1]

John,

What Rob said. Depending on what editing software you’re using will determine how well you can remove or at least tone down that hum. Vegas (PC) has very good noise reduction plug-ins built-in. Premiere (PC/Mac) has some audio plug-ins but they aren’t good as the one’s in Soundbooth or Audition. Media Composer (PC/Mac) has a good noise reduction plug-in and from what I understand FCP (Mac) has some useful audio plug-ins as well.

If you are not using any of the previous then I suggest; Sound Forge (PC) for a stand-alone audio editor. You can get a stripped down version for consumers much cheaper with a less steep learning curve with their ‘Studio’ line if you don’t want to go full on. You’ll have to ask the Mac gurus around here for suitable stand alone audio software suitable for mac.

[Anonymous]

That’s not “hum” but “hiss.” “Hum” s a lower-frequency constant noise, one with some pitch to it (almost like a musical note). “Hiss” is the high-frequency “white noise” you have (you’ll find it in between FM stations, for example). It plagued cassette recordings which is why Dolby was used as a way to reduce that background hiss. It’s best to reduce it on the way in, if you can, if not, I agree with others that it may be possible to strip it out using software.

[Woody]

 I would also go with the “Hiss” but are you using the ATR 6550 a non- xlr mic? What camera are you using it on and what is your environment like, are you under lights?

[doublehamm]

I downloaded audacity a couple weeks back for this same issue. It is free – and worked well once I played around with settings for a bit. I have tried messing around with plug-ins within Vegas with no success. This works just as well, just import the audio back into vegas once completed.

[JackWolcott]

The trick is to use a VERY small sample — not more than a few frames if possible. This will minimize the chance of audio that you want to keep being affected by the noise reduction plug-in. The noise reduction software will work to suppress everything within whatever frequency range you stipulate and if you choose to broad a sampling you may be including frequencies associated with the human voice.

The Vegas Noise Reduction plug-in, by the way, is excellent at dealing with both hiss and hum. Search the Vegas editor’s forum for posts by “Douglas Spotted Eagle,” “DSE” or “SPOT” for some excellent advice on this; read the “Help” information included with the plug-in as well.

Jack

[birdcat]

I agree with Jack – The Vegas Noise Reduction plug-in is outstanding – It comes as part of Sound Forge Pro or stand-alone, but either way it’s not cheap. Audacity is not as good but it’s free.

The good news is if you only need it as a one-off (and aren’t afraid of becoming addicted) you can download a fully functional 30 day trial of Sound Forge Pro from Sony, which does come with a fully functional copy of the noise reduction tool.

[Tony]

There is no hum in the audio, but there is hiss. Hiss like that can be caused by any of the following:

a) A mic with high “self Noise”

b) A preamp with high “self noise”

c) A mic witha low output coupled with a poor quality preamp with high self noise

d) Recording at too low a level meaning you need to boost the volume later making the hiss show up louder.

So firstly, if you usea good mic into a good preamp and interface you will not get this problem to start with.

Failing that, as the above poster suggested, invest in Sound Forge. It’s a great program. Use of the Sony noise reduction plugins, Waves X-noise or Izotope RX plugins and any of them will nail that hiss totally if done right.

[cfxcorp]

Was this problem ever resolved?  Just curious.

I loaded the WAV file into Sound Forge Audio Studio noticed the noise seemed to be only in the left channel.  The wave form was slighlty below the INF line, too.  I don’t know whatr that means and none of the included filters (Studio version) seemed to fix the problem.

[cfxcorp]

I adjusted the DC offset (auto setting, unchecked the “First 5 seconds” box) and dropped the lowest frequency band -10 db in the Graphic Equalizer and what sounds like a high-pitch tone – but is actually a lower frequency – is all but gone.

This was using SF Audio Studio v 10.

[Author]

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