Anyone using Waves Restoration....

[Brandon Burke]

Our department just got the Waves Restoration noise reduction bundle in today and I'm going to install it if I have time today. Curious as to whether anyone on the board has experience with these plug-ins (i.e. things *not* to do that they don't warn you about, cool stuff it will do that they don't tell you about, interesting quirks, etc).

Thanks in advance,

B.

[Claude]

I've tried some of the noise reduction plugins including Waves, but I didn't find them useful.

If you set them to reduce LP surface noise efficiently, the music sounds unnatural, and if you reduce their effect until no negative impact on the music can be heard, the noise reduction is so minimal you can leave it altogether.

When I digitize LPs I only cut out loud pops manually and leave the rest as it is.

[Brandon Burke]

I've tried some of the noise reduction plugins including Waves, but I didn't find them useful.

If you set them to reduce LP surface noise efficiently, the music sounds unnatural, and if you reduce their effect until no negative impact on the music can be heard, the noise reduction is so minimal you can leave it altogether.

When I digitize LPs I only cut out loud pops manually and leave the rest as it is.

Right. We'll be doing less music digitization and more, say, oral history interviews. I hear you though with regards to music. I'm very anti-noise reduction when it comes to music.

[mmilovan]

I have tried Noise Reduction plugin from Sound Forge, and find it usefull only for some extreme cases such as old 78s. But, in all that situation you must be carefull - not to destroy original music, even in 78s case.

[Brandon Burke]

I have tried Noise Reduction plugin from Sound Forge, and find it usefull only for some extreme cases such as old 78s. But, in all that situation you must be carefull - not to destroy original music, even in 78s case.

Yes. I'm very aware of the ethical issues surrounding digitization. This would include audio documents other than works of art as well. A "cleaned up" interview might no longer contain crucial evidence if the ambient background sounds have been removed. I do as little "cleaning" as possible, unless of course, the client wants those sounds de-emphasized. In such cases, I also provide them with a copy of the raw capture.

[Dr. Rat]

Yes. I'm very aware of the ethical issues surrounding digitization.

Creeping moralism!

I don't think this qualifies as an ethical issue unless you destroy the original source after digitizing--or sell an inferior product, which is a separate issue.

I am probably telling you a lot of things you know, but . . .

You can really work wonders with bad voice recordings using effects: I've had a lot of success with just spectrally analyzing a field voice recording, finding the oddball spike and suppressing it with the parametric eq. If you do this with care and you're lucky you can do this without killing the ambiance or the quality of voice.

What is bad on a voice recording is often a very simple problem, becuase there is so little content.

One thing I've noticed using some treatment packages (I've used a lot, but I'm not sure about this particular package, I've demoed lots) is that you have to be careful when you apply more than one sort of effect to a recording--I've had some pretty weird results--sounding like flutter, phasing--when I've applied two effects to a voice recording--especially if the person does things like drag vowel sounds.

These effects are generally subtle and they don't happen all the time by any means, but they are enough to disturb me.

I have offboard analog eq, which I will use instead of the internal digital algorhythm if I compress a recording either temporally or dynamically, for instance.

I am by no means a theoritician or qualified technician in this realm--just somebody whose made a lot of different kinds of voice recordings.

Anyhow, hope this is of some service,

--eric

Edited March 4, 2004 by WNMC

[Brandon Burke]

Creeping moralism!

I don't think this qualifies as an ethical issue unless you destroy the original source after digitizing--or sell an inferior product, which is a separate issue.

I was trying to say that when one produces a preservation or access copy of a document, he is determining the way that future researchers/students/etc will hear it and, as such, the way it will be 'remembered' (in the canonical sense). This is a potential risk as the engineer has the ability to--in a sense--alter history. I'm speaking here, of course, about one-of-a-kind recordings.

[Brandon Burke]

One thing I've noticed using some treatment packages (I've used a lot, but I'm not sure about this particular package, I've demoed lots) is that you can do wonders with bare voice recordings BUT you have to be careful when you apply more than one sort of effect to a recording--I've had some pretty weird results--sounding like flutter, phasing--when I've applied two effects to a voice recording--especially if the person does things like drag vowel sounds.

Yea, I've noticed this as well.