Audio Speech Vocal Needs Correction

[Ezad]

Hello

I don’t know how to begin to improve this audio.

I have started by normalizing first, amplify, multiband compressor/broadcast, then noise reduction.

Then again I would do noise reduction, amplify, acron-deverberate.  If I did not do a deverberate I would attempt to apply the parametric equalizer using Larry Jordan’s method to increase vocal. Thus I would try various methods and some would be almost acceptable and others would be failures.The results in my attempts are less than desirable.

If you folks don’t mind giving a listen to this sample and if there if a method  to fix this audio I would be most grateful to know.

Thanks!

[Bob Howes · Accepted solution]

I fear you'll never make this sound really good.  The two or things I would try would be:

Noise reduction (the process in Waveform view) to reduce the general hiss in the background throughout.  I won't go into detail here but NR is always best if you do 3 or 4 gentle passes (increasing the FFT size each time) rather than a single "big" pass. 

The clicks/metallic noise (your tripod?) can likely be eliminated used the spot healing feature in Waveform + Spectral Frequency view.

FInally, that buzz that crops up a couple of times could likely be fixed or at least improved, maybe just by painting it out in Spectral view or else (if you're lucky) with the sound remover tool.

Once you have it as quiet as possible, one of the voice enhancer presets in the compression section MIGHT help.

The one thing I fear you are stuck with is the hollow, echoey quality.  I know you mention Acron Deverberate but I have to say that I've never found any of the plug ins claiming to eliminate room echo that didn't do more harm than good.  I hope you're lucky but I won't hold my breath.

[ryclark]

Noise Reduction should be done pretty early in the process after just Normalising the levels. It won't be effective if you apply any dynamic amplitude effects like Compression before using it.

[Ezad]

I understand the steps as outlined that may yield an improve vocal quality.

It's this - the voice has a tin sound as the subject speaks - if there a method to apply that would reduce the tinny sound in the voice?

Thanks