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Working in a post production facility, I come across a lot of poorly recorded audio that comes in on Beta SP or DVCam video tapes. A lot of times the location recordist has no choice but to record interviews in large warehouses or on a loud, busy street. And also, a lot of times people just don't notice the natural ambience of the environment they are in until they view the playback in the studio. That is when the clients begin worrying about the distracting background noise and turn to the audio guy to help remove it. However, a lot of the time it's impossible to remove unwanted noise without ruining the voice that occupies that same frequency spectrum. This is the reason 85% of the dialogue in a big production movie is generally replaced in ADR (Automated Dialogu Replacement) sessions.

Still, we've come along way with noise reduction technologies and when you're in a pinch and ADR is not possible you can turn to a variety of noise reduction plugins to help out. Some of the leading plugins out there include Digidesign's own DINR, Sonic Solutions' No-Noise, Waves X-Noise and the very expensive Cedar Tools by Cedar Audio. Each have their own strengths and weaknesses in noise reduction applications. However, one of the most overlooked plugins, I believe, is Bias SoundSoap 2. SoundSoap 2 is the little brother of SoundSoap Pro and at only $100 retail (I got it for $70 on Ebay), I figured I'd give it a shot to see how well it can fit in with my setup.

First off, a little basic information about it. SoundSoap 2 for Pro Tools offers an RTAS and Audio Suite version of the plugin. Oddly enough for stereo tracks it only comes in multi-channel and not multi-mono...but generally I don't find myself tweaking stereo files separately when trying to reduce noise. But some people may find this a limitation. The software also installs a standalone program for use with Quicktime or Windows Media audio/video files including AVI, DV, WAV, SDII, AIFF, MP3, MP4 and others. The single installation CD can be installed on Mac or PC and is also compatible with Audio Units, Direct X and VST host programs.

The program installs easily enough, but once you start the program you are prompted to authorize the version you are using. I found this quite annoying because you are forced to register the program to receive your authorization code. If you have an internet connection it just takes a few minutes, but for people who don't they have to mail it in. While waiting for your authorization code to be mailed back to you, you are allowed a 14 day trial of the software. Personally, once I purchase a program I want to use it right then and there...I don't want to wait another week for my authorization code to be mailed to me. That's one point against Bias for forcing that on us.

Now onto the program itself. The interface is very simple to use. Their full blown version offers much more control over the audio, but for people who get confused easily with audio controls (ie. video editors) or just want something simple and inexpensive, SoundSoap 2 may be a good fit. Like I mentioned above, the key to good noise reduction is removing unwanted noise without adding artificats to the audio you want to keep. So to do that you need to learn the art of minimalism. Multiple noise reduction plugins setup in series or with EQs before/after them is much better than trying to attack the entire noise with a single reduction plugin.

Let's start with some examples of what I was able to do with it. First off listen to a short selection of the orginal source recording:

This file was originally recorded in a big Sam's Wholesale Club warehouse. ADR was impossible during this job because of budget concerns, location, and because of how emotional the original subject matter was...which would be impossible to recreate by someone who is not an actress. So what we hear in the original is lots of warehouse rumble, people talking and a high pitched squeal probably coming from some audible, electrical interference (ie. big overhead lights).

I first started off by using SoundSoap 2's "Learn Noise" feature which analyzes a noise only section and reduces it accordingly. A perfect selection for this was at the end of the file. After two seconds of analyzing, SoundSoap kicks in and I heard a dramatic difference in the sound. Immediately following that I switched over to the "Noise Only" mode to listen to any part of the voice that may be being removed with the noise. Reducing the Noise Tuner changes the threshold that SoundSoap listens to and then I can add more on the Noise Reduction knob to attack the unwanted noise a little stronger. You can also do the opposite and increase the Noise Tuner to clean up more of the noise at a lower noise reduction rate. I feel that with typical room noise a low Noise Tuner and higher Noise Reduction setting is best...contrasting that, when there is more noise than actual dialog, turning up the Noise Tuner and adding very little Noise Reduction works better. Again, less is more, so becareful how much reduction you apply to the sound so that you minimize any flanging created in the sound. Since this was a spoke voice interview I turned on the "Preserve Voice" feature which helps keep those frequencies of the human voice audible. It also effectively removed that high pitched ringing sound we heard which was somewhere upwards of 15.5kHz (well out of the range of the human voice). Seeing as the audio was originally recorded in a large warehouse I turned on the Remove Rumble feature as well as the 60Hz cycle hum to remove any poor grounding noise that may have been picked up from the gear they were using. Here is the resulting sound after just a little bit of tweaking:

Bias SoundSoap 2

drynoise.mp3

soundsoapreduced.mp3

As you can see the noise has been dramatically reduced. Yes there are some audible artifacts, and with most stuff there will always be...you just have to balance between no noise with artifacts and lots of noise without. The Remove Rumble feature didn't get out all the rumble that I wanted so I threw up an EQ before SoundSoap and set a Hi-Pass filter to slope off starting at 130Hz. The following is the resulting file:

soundsoapEQ.mp3

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