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Automatic vs professional (manual) audio clean up - Samples included
Is it worth it to use automatic background noise removal services?
Or you need to hire a professional audio restoration specialist instead in order to get the best possible quality?
Well, let's see three audio samples and judge yourself.
Audio content inside (as we always provide them).
As you might have expected, more and more online services are offering automatic audio restoration as a baiting in addition to their other (paid) services. Their main profile is paid video editing usually. We have tested whether they are worth using such services.
It wouldn’t be fair if we don’t put our own work next to it, so let’s see and hear the three samples.
What do you think which one will be the best, most pleasant for the human ear?
The automatic one or the one produced by our online audio clean up service?
To achieve proper result please use headphones
Original recording
With a lot of background noise, voice is weak as well
After automatic noise removal
There's a huge left-over noise, voice is louder, but still weak
After a professional audio expert fixed it
No noise at all, voice sounds professional
Conclusion
As you can hear the automatic solution couldn't really handle the task, so you hear a lot of left-over noise, the voice is still weak, but a bit louder though.
After professional audio clean up the result is clean, noise's gone, the voice is loud and full, natural with great low-end.
As you probably wants to get it after background noise removal.
All in all if you don't need professional sounding audio material it might worth to use automatic services.
For professional work hire a professional. Huge amount of audio restoration specialists out there online, it's not more complicated to reach out them.
What do you think? Please share your thoughts below.
Richard Toth
Train Your Ears 2.0 - Get 20% extra discount
Train Your Ears 2.0 is a highly recommended tool for all audio engineers to improve their hearing.
The software is very easy to use and fun as well.
Get extra 20% discount!
We would like to introduce you TrainYourEars 2.0, a professional audio software for all audio engineers, recording engineers, producers, mastering engineers with the recommendation of Bob Katz audio mastering icon.
We at audio-cleaning-online.com use this handy software to get our hearing system in form, to warm up our ears before work and improve the understanding of equalization and the frequency spectrum.
What it does?
The software adds different random equalizers to your music stored on your computer,
and you can guess which frequency changed by setting the frequency on a modeled EQ.
At the end of a quiz you can compare the right answer to yours, so that speeding up the
learning method.
Features:
- Noise player: you can learn different noise types (pink, white)
- Music player: drag and drop your favorite songs to play with
- Live player: connect external audio sources to the software through the sound card
- Training Guess mode: you have to guess the frequency of the EQ applied
- Training Correct mode: you have to find the exact opposite of the EQ applied
- Exercise packages: different exercises has been made qualified sound professionals
- You can set your own exercise, the software is very flexible
You can find the complete documentation here.
Where can you buy:
They just decided to reduce the price by 45% plus you can get an EXTRA 20% discount that you can apply here at the very bottom of the page, BUT for the coupon code
please write us an email first.
We'll try to do our best to send the coupon in 24 hours.
The Ether Review podcast - Edited, mixed, mastered by us
It's been honorific to help Arthur Falls again with the audio editing, mixing and podcast mastering of a few episodes of his The Ether Review podcasts.
Services applied:
- Audio editing service (cutting out of long pauses, stutters; decreasing of breath takings)
- Audio restoration (background noise removal)
- Podcast mixing and Podcast mastering services
State Change podcast - Edited, mixed, mastered by us
We were more than happy to help the ConsenSys Media Team with the audio editing, mixing and podcast mastering of a few of their State Change podcasts.
Services applied:
- Audio editing service (removal of unnecessary takes, long pauses)
- Audio restoration (hiss and background noise removal)
- Podcast mixing and Podcast mastering services
Enjoy!
New service: Audio editing
We are proudly announce our new audio editing service.
From now on we provide with audio editing services as well, so if you are looking for professional audio editors, who is able to enhance your audio, and/or able to eliminate problems of your audio voice recording, now you have found it. We are here to help you.
We can help you with the following:
- editing out mistakes, unwanted parts of your voice over or any voice recordings
- removing noises (we deal with audio restoration as well)
- enhance the quality of your podcast, audiobook, or any audio materials by using EQ's, compressors, etc.
- adding music or intros/outros other parts to your radio shows
- if you provide script, we can arrange your any audios such as webinars, presentations, e-learning multimedia
- we can edit your audiobook to meet the highest ACX standards (Audible.com)
- we can handle many more audio related problems, please contact us bravely
We are at your disposal,
We accept Bitcoin for our audio services
We are proud to announce that you can pay with Bitcoin for our audio related services, such as:
- Audio editing service
- Podcast editing service
- Podcast mastering service
- Audio restoration service
- Audio clean-up service
We are at your disposal,
Pono player beats the iPod (and MP3)
Giant things are happening in the world,
one of them is it seems like bad audio quality is undesirable finally.
Let us introduce you the PONO PLAYER high-resolution portable digital music player.
As an audio engineer I highly welcome this new audio pocket player.
The PONO Player able to play high-definition audio up to 192 kHz/24bit resolution, so now you can digitize your favorite vinyls and listen to them on public transport, or in your car.
I hope finally it can beat the iPod and MP3, so I don't have to fight against them anymore.
The Pono Player plays MP3 too, but trust me, you don't want to listen to MP3's anymore :)
I can't describe you how happy I am, and how I hate these compressed file formats.
Only little minus that I dont think this little player is ergonomic due to its triangular design.
It would not be comfortable when you sit down with a PONO Player in your hip-pocket.
Good news for professionals that they can use the 2 3.5mm jack outputs in balanced mode, so only thing they need is two small stereo jack-XLR adapter or cable.
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Technical specifications:
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|
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Music formats |
FLAC, ALAC, WAV, AIFF, AAC, MP3 |
| Music resolution | Lossless playback at up to 192kHz / 24bit |
| Storage | 128GB total - 64GB flash memory plus SanDisk 64GB microSD card included |
| Expansion slot | Supports microSD cards of up to 64GB |
| Digital-to-Analog convertor |
ESS ES9018M DAC
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| Battery |
Large 2900mAH Li-Ion rechargeable for up to 8 hours of playback time |
| Charger |
AC universal adapter (100-240 VAC) |
| USB cable |
USB-to-MicroUSB cable |
| Screen |
2.5 inch color touchscreen |
| Audio output |
Two 3.5mm (1/8 inch) jacks, supports four listening modes |
| Weight |
130 grams (4.6 ounces |
| Dimensions |
13x5x2.5 cm (5x2x1 inches) |
Anyway, the two 1/8 inch (3.5 mm) audio output jacks offer you four modes of operation:
1) personal
listening mode via headphones or earbuds,
2) home stereo or in-car listening mode with fixed volume output,
3) PonoShare mode with two pairs of headphones/earbuds,
4) balanced mode provides ultra-performance for advanced users, separating left and right channel outputs across the two jacks. Great for use with high-impedance headphones, high-end home
stereo systems, or professional equipment using balanced XLR input connectors.
Audio files can be loaded onto the Pono Player using the Pono Music Center desktop application
(soon to be released on Windows and MacOS). The PonoPlayer can also be sideloaded as a USB storage device (Windows, MacOS, Linux).
Hurry up to pre-order! (ammm, yeah it's pricey)
Beyond Bitcoin podcast - Mixed and mastered by us
There you are the latest episode of Beyond Bitcoin podcast. Arthur Falls is a very kind person who really a pleasure to work with.
Please enjoy his show as we did while it was under process.
Services applied:
- Audio restoration (noise cleaning, remove background noise)
- Arranging
-
Podcast mixing and podcast mastering
17 tips to get quality sounding podcast
Let's see 17 tips and tricks before you start to record your podcast. Please take my advice, everything on this list is very important to get a good sound quality podcast at last, that is ready for podcast mastering. Please, feel free to ask in the comment section below.
- If it's possible record everything by using professional microphones (avoid cheap and built-in mics)
- Use popfilters on mics
- Stay away from walls and corners (if you have acoustic treatments, you can sit closer to them).
- Turn down the volume of your speakers to zero(!) while recording, and use headphones (including your guests)
- Forget MP3(!), if you have space on your hard drive, record in .wav (on Windows) or .aiff (if you are on Mac)
- Set the sample rate to 44kHz/16bit or if your soundcard is good enough, choose the 44kHz/24bit depth option, minimum
- If you don't have space on your hard drive, choose the FLAC format to compress your audio files or use the mono recording option (the human voice is a mono source anyway)
-
If you already have a lot of MP3's, don't save them back in MP3 again after the cutting/ trimming/ mixing processes (avoid double compress), use lossless file formats instead (as I marked above: .wav, .aiff, .flac)
- Use quality microphone cables, such as Mogami's Quad cable or Mogami neglex 2549. If you have USB mike, nothing to do, use the USB cable bravely
- Take away the power supplies from the audio cables
- Keep your microphones away from your monitor display
- Don't use external hard drives to record to it directly (only if it has USB3 connection) it may causes glitches to your recordings
-
Record the mics to separate channels in your recording software, it will help in mixing it separately
- Turn off the built-in sounds of softwares such as Skype (etc.) during the recording
- Turn off the system sounds of Windows (or OS X's)
- Turn off the screensavers
- Take out or switch off your mobile phones
Happy podcasting!
Audio cable A/B test
If you spend money on quality audio equipments, like amps, speakers, headphones,
why would you cut corners on interconnect cables? Here's a test/ review of two audio cables, a common audio cable and the Mogami neglex 2549. Mogami is much used in audio studios, so it might be good for us as well to listen to music.
No, I am not sponsored by Mogami.
Usually in tests like this, a professional tells you the 'truth', and you believe him, because he is a professional. But now you can see and hear the difference, so you can believe your own eyes and ears.
Noise
As you can see on the pictures below, the Mogami cable is more senseless to low frequency hum than the common one. The hum itself and its harmonics, in this case 150Hz and 250Hz, are due to the frequency of electrical networks, which is 50Hz in Europe.
Common cable noise profile on phono usage
Mogami neglex 2549 noise profile on phono usage
Sound quality
OK now, let's see closely how these cables sound. The vinyl was the Daft Punk - Random access memories album, because it's a
masterpiece of sound engineering.
Sorry I can't upload the whole files, only samples because of the copyrights.
The original sample rate was 192kHz/32 bit, but I couldn't upload to sound sharing sites,
than resampled to 44,1kHz/16bit (normal CD quality).
Common cable sounds
Mogami neglex 2549 sounds
So here is the evidence, the Mogami sounds more detailed, precise, clean (try to concentrate to reverbs and snares), bright and its frequency response is as flatten as an ironed shirt, maybe it's worth the (not so much) money.
Don't worry if you didn't hear the difference, maybe your ears are tired now, or it will be come later in your life,
or you are in need of really good headphones or speakers.
Update: thanks to the SoundCloud audio compression... maybe I will change player widget...
Update no.2.: I've changed the audio player to Hearthis.at's, that is more flexible and cheaper than SoundCloud. It can play .wav, .aiff, etc. You should try.
Used connections:
Neutrik gold plated RCA and Jack 6.3mm
Artworks from audio cassettes - Benoit Jammes
Just found our new favorite artist Benoit Jammes, you can see his works in the flickr widget below or/and like his page on Facebook. Have fun!
Click to play:
How we remove reverb from an audio file
Here is a sample how we remove reverb from audio on video.
Our friend, Alban asked us, if it's possible, apply some de-reverberation on his video, because he recorded it in a very big, empty hall, and it sounds very "roomy".
Please note that the video was taken with a mobile phone, so it's not perfect, but perfectly suitable for presentation.
The sound of the video have not been mixed yet, what you hear is caused by the de-reverberation only. Sounds much-much better, isn't it?
If you are interested in audio improvement, please visit our audio clean-up
service and we'll repair your audio as well.