Coughs & sneezes in live recordings -Sound Forge - PC

Subject:Coughs & sneezes in live recordings Posted by: Hummingbird Date:12/17/2002 10:58:33 AM I record church worship services in which there is a fair amount of noise from conversation during preludes and postludes. I am able to slightly reduce this problem with noise reduction. Coughs are another matter, however. Does anyone have any suggestions for removing (or softening the impact) of coughs and sneezes. It is almost impossible to get usable recordings of organ service music because of these noises. Occasionally, I can simply cut the section out of the recording, but more often than not I am stuck with the offending sounds. Hummingbird
Subject:RE: Coughs & sneezes in live recordings Reply by: musicvid10 Date:12/17/2002 11:50:54 AM You'll have more luck with careful mic placement than trying to "suppress" the coughs and sneezes later. Consider getting supercardiod hanging and stand mics, and position them to pick up only what you are interested in, aimed away from the congregation at all times. If the coughs and sneezes occur in quiet areas of the recording, it is a relatively easy matter to reduce their volume to unobjectionable levels. When they happen in the middle of music or speech, you are pretty much stuck with it.
Subject:RE: Coughs & sneezes in live recordings Reply by: Jason_Abbott Date:12/17/2002 12:34:30 PM If the offending noises occur during speech, then with some careful editing you might be able to find replacement phenomes somewhere else, but with music it may be harder to substitute sounds from other sections. In any case, I doubt it's something you'd want to do routinely. - Jason
Subject:RE: Coughs & sneezes in live recordings Reply by: rraud Date:12/17/2002 6:04:57 PM Here are 3 ways of removing coughs, farts, sneezes ect. All are unfortunatly time consuming and usually won't work if dialouge or some music occurs at the same moment. 1. Highlight the cough and select Tools> Repair> Replace. (sometimes this works, somtimes not, depending on many factors) 2. Copy a few seconds of "room tone" or adjacent sound. Highlight the offending cough, right-click & select overwrite. (Room tone: aka, ambient sound with no dialoge) 3. Delete the problem all together. This will change the program's overall leigth and any subsequent sync to video or anything else will be lost. However it can work on sustained notes and chords.
Subject:RE: Coughs & sneezes in live recordings Reply by: Hummingbird Date:12/17/2002 7:02:46 PM To rraud - I like your idea of trying "repair/replace," but replace with what? Typically, a noise occurs on both left and right channels, so I can't borrow from one to repair the other. Thanks for the suggestion, though. I appreciate the help you guys offer on this forum. I find that my musical skills are better applied 'before,' rather than 'after' the recording has been done. It's amazing how difficult live recording really is when you need to use the recording later. Hummingbird
Subject:RE: Coughs & sneezes in live recordings Reply by: MJhig Date:12/17/2002 8:42:47 PM SoundForge uses the data adjacent to the selected area to replace with. The limit to the selection to be replaced is .5 seconds. This process works very well for scratches in vinyl and short glitches like that. MJ

Subject:Coughs & sneezes in live recordings

Posted by: Hummingbird

Date:12/17/2002 10:58:33 AM

I record church worship services in which there is a fair amount of noise from
conversation during preludes and postludes. I am able to slightly reduce this problem with noise reduction. Coughs are another matter, however. Does anyone have any suggestions for removing (or softening the impact) of coughs and sneezes. It is almost impossible to get usable recordings of organ service music because of these noises. Occasionally, I can simply cut the section out of the recording, but more often than not I am stuck with the offending sounds.

Hummingbird