Malver wrote:

My knowledge of editting music/composing music on the computer is quite limited, so I thought I'd ask here (Why? Gah, I don't know :P) for some help.

I have a recorded sound that I need to use, but there is a lot of background sounds that pretty much ruin it. Is there any kind of software that I can use that can remove the background sounds? I don't know if this can be done with normal software, because as I said, I know jack-[deleted] about editting music.

Thanks for any help.

That's a very tricky task for the computer to perform. There are software plug-ins that remove noise, but there are a few things to note:

1. They are pretty expensive, for the most part. The Sonic Foundry Noise-Reduction plugin has a street price of $200+. I'm sure there are cheaper.
2. They only work on fairly static noise (tape hiss, hums, air-conditioning noise, etc.)
3. They do not work completely, and take a bit of trial-and-error to get any kind of good result.

What is the sound you want to use, and what are the background sounds?

Well now, thats where Kazaa and software ripping comes in, I know its bad to do, but for the price you just can't go wrong!


<<>>Kusanagi<<>>

AbyssDragon wrote:

Cool Edit Pro and Goldwave are the best I've used for editing and touching-up sound effects. Neither are free, but you can find usable shareware versions of both if you look around.

Has there been a new version of Cool Edit since '96?
I never reinstalled it on my new computer, basically because I've done very little effects editing in quite a while.

Cool Edit '96 was some pretty horrific crippleware--crippled to the point where my "not one thin dime" maxim about timerware came into play. But the features were fantastic. I never managed to get tape hiss out of cassette sounds, but I did find great ways to produce a cavernous echo. (An example of what I did with the echo effect can be found on my defunct Creatures site, The Norn Underground. I took some sound effects from the game, and some samples like whispering, and juiced them up with an echo. Then I saved the whole mess in .au format so they could work with Java (screw you, Sun Microsystems, for only supporting such an inferior format!) and I made a little applet to play them semi-randomly.)

I still use Goldwave a lot, although I find the nag features tremendously annoying. It does a lot of interesting things, but I wish it did them better. I find it's good for general-purpose editing, and the expression evaluator is kind of cool, but for serious effects work it's lacking.

Lummox JR

Kusanagi wrote:

Well now, thats where Kazaa and software ripping comes in, I know its bad to do, but for the price you just can't go wrong!

The spyware factor of KaZaA makes it a no-go for anyone who looks into it seriously, unless they're willing to invest considerable resources into thwarting the spyware before they even install it. (It installs some stuff that's difficult-to-impossible to clean out without a program like Ad Aware. After disabling the spyware, though, I'm told KaZaA doesn't work at all.)

So far the only serious approaches I've seen to file sharing lately are WinMX and LimeWire (a Gnutella client). WinMX is based on the old OpenNap protocol, but when I finally checked out the program a few months ago I found it a lot more sophisticated than when I'd first looked into it. It's transcended Napster. The problem, though, is that sometimes it's still hard to find stuff, and often you just sit in queues forever. However, and I can't stress this enough, it's possible to find stuff on WinMX that I've seen nowhere else--sometimes you just have to wait a couple hours before the right people show up. And it has a secondary problem: If you make enough primary connections, it eats your CPU cycles alive. I've had some pretty serious crashes when I wasn't keeping a close eye on this puppy.

LimeWire is also good for finding stuff, insofar as Gnutella's good at anything; it's one of the few Gnutella clients that doesn't use spyware. I think very poorly of Gnutella, as it has a lot of trouble finding stuff I know is out there and even more actually making connections. But nevertheless, on a good day you can pick up quite a bit of stuff if you're connected long enough; its strength is finding the mega-popular MP3 files. The down side is everything else. (And don't forget there are trojans out there that return false results over Gnutella.)

Morpheous has been using Gnutella since they got kicked off KaZaA's network by some nasty tactics. It was somewhat sucky to begin with, but it sucks vacuum now. It finds as little as any other Gnutella client, but it contributes nothing to network health.
In fact, a few weeks after I started using WinMX I tried LimeWire again, and found that Morpheous is now dominating the network with really horrible ultrapeer connections. Either they're not reporting hosts or they're just not exposing enough, but I think it's both--Morpheus really blows. Other clients are also wasting network space, including Acquisition and (I'm told) Gnucleus.

So if you're looking for a semi-stable connection where you can find popular things easily and less popular stuff if you keep trying for a couple weeks, LimeWire is a good way to go. If you want maximum ability to find what you're looking for (even then it may not be good, but it beats Gnutella), WinMX is your ticket--but download some kind of system monitor to go with it, so you can keep memory clear and try to keep an eye on when it's sucking down the CPU.

Lummox JR

Kusanagi wrote:

Kazaa works fine for me, I have Phazes Spy-Aware, it loads on startup and prevents adds from popping up or any unwanted information from getting on your computer, unless of course you download something =P.

The problem with spyware is more one of information leaving the computer than coming in.

Lummox JR

Lummox JR wrote:

Kusanagi wrote:

Kazaa works fine for me, I have Phazes Spy-Aware, it loads on startup and prevents adds from popping up or any unwanted information from getting on your computer, unless of course you download something =P.

The problem with spyware is more one of information leaving the computer than coming in.

Lummox JR

Why not use iMesh? This is a very reliable program and I find it aquires alot more data than KaZaA, WinMX and Morpheus does.

I have gained many MP3 files and other things too like Movies and Programs etc. Not to mention, downloading on iMesh has given me the best of my downloading speed ever! I have never had faster downloads on programs like KaZaA, WinMX or Morpheus. iMesh is a really great program and its very good for finding MP3's, Movies, Software and all the other things too.

So, why not give iMesh a try? You can get it from http://www.downloads.com. If you scroll down the page a little you will find iMesh.

--Lee

Skysaw wrote:

Computer noise is a problem in my music studio. I actually have a separate room where I place my microphone to sing, so I don't pick it up.

What I ended up doing at my last apartment was putting all of the computers in a walk-in closet and running cables out into the room for keyboard/mouse, monitor, network, audio, etc. The few times I actually needed to record from a microphone, I just shut the door and had a relatively quiet room. But it was still an apartment, so far from perfect. My current apartment is a little too cramped so I didn't even bother to setup for any mic recording (which I do so rarely anyway).

The worst, however, is PC monitor interference with guitars. I have a Stratocaster that hums and buzzes like crazy if the monitor is on. My latest tactic is to hit record, then switch off the monitor. Strats are noisy enough without the help.

Yep, I used to do that too. Then I got my LCD monitor. Ahhh, bliss! I can now record guitar tracks and watch the meters, etc on the screen at the same time with no extra hum.

Back to the original question of the thread - yeah, try isolating the microphone from the computer as well as you can and re-record the sound if possible. It's much easier in the long run to record a clean sound to begin with than try to clean up a bad one after the fact. Same goes for photo and video editing too.

Lummox JR wrote:

Mellifluous wrote:

Why not use iMesh? This is a very reliable program and I find it aquires alot more data than KaZaA, WinMX and Morpheus does.

Because it too is spyware. iMesh was using spyware when pretty much only BearShare (a Gnutella client) thought it was fashionable. A year ago iMesh was the suckiest of the suckiest; I doubt that's changed.

I have gained many MP3 files and other things too like Movies and Programs etc. Not to mention, downloading on iMesh has given me the best of my downloading speed ever! I have never had faster downloads on programs like KaZaA, WinMX or Morpheus. iMesh is a really great program and its very good for finding MP3's, Movies, Software and all the other things too.

So, why not give iMesh a try? You can get it from http://www.downloads.com. If you scroll down the page a little you will find iMesh.

Always read up on these programs to see what spyware, if any, is going in with them before you do the installation.

Lummox JR

Thanks for the tip Lummox JR -- I think I will do more research on what I install next time, even though I never installed the addon's that iMesh came with...

Thanks anyway...

--Lee