How to chose a range of audio to pick for Noise Reduction?

Clifford-Bowman wrote on 1/27/2025, 11:15 AM

I want to clean up repeating sounds from a large (1h 42m) audio file. I have tried going into ranged mode and selecting a sample of crockery going "chink" then pressing "Pick" in the DeNoiser... but it doesn't appear to grab that sound (or indeed do anything). The "Noise sample spectrum" remains blank. I don't see how I can specify only unwanted noises to remove?

I'm coming from CoolEdit Pro 2.1 from before 2003 so I expected this to be at least as easy in up-to-date software.

Next up I will want to try and find out if I can remove feedback, or even echoes (both of which strike me as harder).

Comments

SP. wrote on 1/27/2025, 1:56 PM

@Clifford-Bowman I recommend you use the 32 bit version. This version shouldn't have the same problem with selecting and updating the GUI as the 64 Bit version. Or pick the noise sample in the main effects view, then switch to the detail view. This should update the curve.

Next, the grabbed noise is really short. I think the algorithm works by inverting the noise profile. This is for removing even background noise, like humming from an air conditioner, tape hiss, tape mechanism noise etc. It's not for removing individual sounds. These need to be cut out. SFACL also has a limited spectral editing mode where you can select a short part of the audio spectrum and remove it. This should be a good to to remove a "clang" sound, if it's not too long

Samplitude Pro X Suite (!) includes the full version of this spectral editing tool. The following video shows it:

Be aware these are all decade old tools. Nowadays the state-of-the-art noise removal softwares are Steinberg SpectraLayers and iZotope RX.