Remove whistle artifacts from vocal?

[dickiefunk]

Hi,

I've been sent a vocal track to mix and there is some whistling in the "ess" sounds. Could someone advise how I could get rid of this using Acoustica Premium?

[stian]

Hi Richard,

I've been sent a vocal track to mix and there is some whistling in the "ess" sounds. Could someone advise how I could get rid of this using Acoustica Premium?

Can you identify the whistling visually in the spectral editor? If yes, I'd recommend to use the lasso or brush tool to select the unwanted whistle and use the retouch tool for repair.

Best,
Stian

[dickiefunk]

Hi Stian,

I'm not sure how to do what you are suggesting? I can pm you the audio clip.

[stian]

Hi!

Hi Stian,

I'm not sure how to do what you are suggesting? I can pm you the audio clip.

Thanks, I received the file and it should be quite easy to fix with the spectral editor. I think the process could be interesting for other users, so I would like to ask if it is okay that I post screenshots from the process here? Would it also be okay to share the before and after audio examples?

Best,
Stian

[dickiefunk]

Yes please feel free to post here Stian

[stian]

Yes please feel free to post here Stian

Great! So here's the procedure:

Using the retouch tool

• Load the clip and switch to Spectral Editing mode
  Switch to spectral mode.png
• Identify the unwanted sound
  Identify unwanted sound.png
• Select the smallest area in the spectrogram that covers the unwanted sound. Here I used the lasso tool, but you can also use a brush tool or the magic wand (best for harmonic sounds).
  Select using lasso tool.png
• Enable the Retouch tool by clicking the button indicated below:
  Enable retouch tool.png
• The Retouch tool needs a reference point that is as similar as possible, but without the noise. Press and hold the Ctrl key while moving the mouse to choose a reference. The reference can be to the left or right of the selection, but also above or below.
  Select reference.png
• Press the button with the arrow to perform the actual retouch

You will need to repeat the procedure for every "whistle" like sound you encounter. Unfortunately, there doesn't seem to be a way to embed the audio files here, but the whistle sound is completely gone after the processing.

Best,
Stian

[dickiefunk]

This works brilliantly!! I am able to get a much more transparent sound removing esses and whistle like sounds from vocals than any de-esser, multiband dynamic eq or the sibilance tool in in Melodyne 5.

[stian]

This works brilliantly!! I am able to get a much more transparent sound removing esses and whistle like sounds from vocals than any de-esser, multiband dynamic eq or the sibilance tool in in Melodyne 5.

Thanks, glad to hear that!

Best,
Stian

[shoma]

Thank you. This was also very helpful to me in a restauration task I had today editing out heavy wind noise. But I would love to see an option to not only attenuate a selected range, but also to add gain. Would that be possible?

[stian]

Thank you. This was also very helpful to me in a restauration task I had today editing out heavy wind noise. But I would love to see an option to not only attenuate a selected range, but also to add gain. Would that be possible?

Glad to hear that! Yes, you can use the "Replace" method instead of the default "Attenuate" method. Please click the drop-down arrow on the Retouch button to view the retouch settings and select "Replace" under "Retouch method".

Best,
Stian

[shoma]

Thank you. This was also very helpful to me in a restauration task I had today editing out heavy wind noise. But I would love to see an option to not only attenuate a selected range, but also to add gain. Would that be possible?

Glad to hear that! Yes, you can use the "Replace" method instead of the default "Attenuate" method. Please click the drop-down arrow on the Retouch button to view the retouch settings and select "Replace" under "Retouch method".

Best,
Stian

Thank you! Just let me explain the problem. I was asked to rescue a recording (made outside with a smartphone) that is suffering from heavy wind noise. While the person holding the device ist quite good to understand after removing most of the wind noise, the other person, standing a few foot away, is not. My idea was to raise the gain only in a certain frequency range in those parts where the other person is talking. Just using an eq does not work. So you say, using the "replace" option will help in this case? I'll have to try this, because my understanding of this option was a bit different, so I didn't test it.

[stian]

Thank you! Just let me explain the problem. I was asked to rescue a recording (made outside with a smartphone) that is suffering from heavy wind noise. While the person holding the device ist quite good to understand after removing most of the wind noise, the other person, standing a few foot away, is not. My idea was to raise the gain only in a certain frequency range in those parts where the other person is talking. Just using an eq does not work. So you say, using the "replace" option will help in this case? I'll have to try this, because my understanding of this option was a bit different, so I didn't test it.

Acoustica will apply processing only to the selected time/frequency selection, so you can easily boost the gain using the Change Volume command. Removing wind manually is very tricky, though. Did you try the new DeWind:Dialogue tool (Enhancement menu)? That should be ideal for this task.

Best,
Stian

[shoma]

Thank you! Just let me explain the problem. I was asked to rescue a recording (made outside with a smartphone) that is suffering from heavy wind noise. While the person holding the device ist quite good to understand after removing most of the wind noise, the other person, standing a few foot away, is not. My idea was to raise the gain only in a certain frequency range in those parts where the other person is talking. Just using an eq does not work. So you say, using the "replace" option will help in this case? I'll have to try this, because my understanding of this option was a bit different, so I didn't test it.

Acoustica will apply processing only to the selected time/frequency selection, so you can easily boost the gain using the Change Volume command. Removing wind manually is very tricky, though. Did you try the new DeWind:Dialogue tool (Enhancement menu)? That should be ideal for this task.

Best,
Stian

Yes, I'm aware of this new DeWind tool and I was looking forward to use it on this task. But it turned out, that the noise floor was too excessive and that painting it out manually was giving me astonishing results and by far considerably better than any of the competing products (RX7, SpectralLayers) in my arsenal. By the way...raising the volume of a specific frequency range in small amounts is quite easy in RX7. The results overall just didn't sound as good as in Acoustica and was looking for a similar way to do it in Acoustica. I will try out your suggestions.