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02-25-2013, 09:33 AM
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#1
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Human being with feelings
Join Date: Jul 2012
Location: Parkville, MO
Posts: 58
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ReaFir as noise reduction
After several weeks of playing around with every DAW I can think of, I've decided to go with reaper simply because I can record, edit, and mix down from one setting. My interface came with Ableton, but Ableton's editing capabilities really blow.
The context is solo classical guitar in my living room. Mic's are set fairly close, it's a good size room with vaulted ceilings, and I hang blankets over the glass surfaces and shut off hvac and appliances when recording. I'm going to make a homemade gobo of sorts to place behind the mics to get rid of the few stray reflections that remain.
There is a bit of floor noise left. I've figured out how to get rid of it with reafir, but not without affecting the recorded audio. After applying NR with the subtract mode, the recorded audio gets tones that sound something like burlap rubbing on my guitar.
What am I doing wrong?
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02-25-2013, 01:28 PM
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#2
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Human being with feelings
Join Date: Jul 2010
Location: Silicon Valley, CA
Posts: 2,787
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I have not used ReaFIR yet, but my experience with other similar noise reduction tools is that sometimes, "The cure can be worse than the disease".
You may be able to tweak the settings to get better results, or your recording may be best just left-alone... It all depends on characteristics of the program material and the characteristics of the noise. Every case is different and you just have to give it a try.
Usually if you have a slight background noise, noise reduction can be very effective. If the noise is bad, there are often undesirable noise-reduction artifacts.
Solo acoustic instruments are some of the most difficult things to record. They don't mask noise very well and they probably are not very good at masking noise-reduction artifacts either.
If you have a lot of instruments and a lot of sound, it's easier to mask noise or other little defects. (i.e. lots of 'signal' gives you a better signal-to-noise ratio.)
If there is silence at the beginning/end you can mute that manually or use a noise gate to eliminate all of the noise during silence. You don't get any artifacts from a gate, since it only kicks-in during silence, but it can be distracting if the background noise suddenly drops-out... Sometimes a little reverb (after the noise gate has been applied) can hide the effects of the background noise suddenly switching in-and-out.
Last edited by DVDdoug; 02-25-2013 at 01:50 PM.
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02-25-2013, 04:13 PM
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#3
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Human being with feelings
Join Date: Mar 2007
Location: I'm in a barn
Posts: 4,467
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I always let Reafir build the noise profile, but then I will pull the entire threshold line down, closer to the noise floor. this still gets rid of most the noise, but has less artifacts.
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02-25-2013, 09:02 PM
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#4
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Human being with feelings
Join Date: Jun 2008
Location: Whales, UK
Posts: 6,010
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Hot reafir tip here... :-)
http://forum.cockos.com/showpost.php...69&postcount=1
Basically Ride the wet/dry of reafir with parameter modulation running from volume, to invisibily reduce noise reduction at high vols and increase as volume gets lower, often never getting 100% wet , eg max out at 90%. Sounds v natural.
Now don't tell anyone.
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02-25-2013, 09:09 PM
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#5
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Human being with feelings
Join Date: May 2010
Posts: 4,109
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Quote:
Originally Posted by BenK-msx
Hot reafir tip here... :-)
http://forum.cockos.com/showpost.php...69&postcount=1
Basically Ride the wet/dry of reafir with parameter modulation running from volume, to invisibily reduce noise reduction at high vols and increase as volume gets lower, often never getting 100% wet , eg max out at 90%. Sounds v natural.
Now don't tell anyone.
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That is a really awesome tip!!!
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02-26-2013, 12:53 AM
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#6
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Human being with feelings
Join Date: Jul 2009
Location: Wellington
Posts: 4,622
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Great tip.
Another thing before NR is recording levels. You said you play pretty close to the Mic. If you play your instrument loud enough you can bring the noise floor down.
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02-26-2013, 08:44 AM
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#7
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Human being with feelings
Join Date: Jul 2012
Location: Parkville, MO
Posts: 58
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Quote:
Originally Posted by James HE
I always let Reafir build the noise profile, but then I will pull the entire threshold line down, closer to the noise floor. this still gets rid of most the noise, but has less artifacts.
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I've seen the word before, but did not know what they sound like. Is what I am hearing, "artifacts"? That is why I posted this in the newbie forum.
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02-26-2013, 08:46 AM
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#8
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Human being with feelings
Join Date: Jul 2012
Location: Parkville, MO
Posts: 58
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Quote:
Originally Posted by BenK-msx
Hot reafir tip here... :-)
http://forum.cockos.com/showpost.php...69&postcount=1
Basically Ride the wet/dry of reafir with parameter modulation running from volume, to invisibily reduce noise reduction at high vols and increase as volume gets lower, often never getting 100% wet , eg max out at 90%. Sounds v natural.
Now don't tell anyone.
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This is something that I need to do in real time during playback, correct? In Ableton, I'd have to print on to another track. Is this true in Reaper as well?
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02-26-2013, 09:38 AM
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#9
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Human being with feelings
Join Date: Jun 2012
Posts: 453
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Quote:
Originally Posted by kmaaj
I've seen the word before, but did not know what they sound like. Is what I am hearing, "artifacts"? That is why I posted this in the newbie forum.
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You doing it like this?
You wanna get the noise profile, i.e. a sample of the noise you dont want, that tells Reafir to get rid of only that sound. And when I say unclick it, it mean after you've sampled the noise.
But like others said, I usually tweak the threshold [control + left click + drag] and use a gate too. Sometimes one or the other alone works.
(the waveform here is really a bad example cause it has some tail of the kick drum - you want a few seconds before anyone starts playing or after everything has decayed. I just dont have anything handy to make you a pic with).
Last edited by Sinner; 02-26-2013 at 09:43 AM.
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02-26-2013, 09:42 AM
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#10
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Human being with feelings
Join Date: Jul 2012
Location: Parkville, MO
Posts: 58
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Sinner, exactly like that. I even first edit out things like my initial sitting down and that first deep breath, and try to select nothing but floor noise for the profile.
*edit: I do see one difference. My red line starts higher than yours and then drops to the same level as yours as it goes to the right. Should I try dragging that intial spike down?
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02-26-2013, 09:44 AM
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#11
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Human being with feelings
Join Date: Jun 2012
Posts: 453
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Quote:
Originally Posted by BenK-msx
Hot reafir tip here... :-)
http://forum.cockos.com/showpost.php...69&postcount=1
Basically Ride the wet/dry of reafir with parameter modulation running from volume, to invisibily reduce noise reduction at high vols and increase as volume gets lower, often never getting 100% wet , eg max out at 90%. Sounds v natural.
Now don't tell anyone.
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That is very clever.
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02-26-2013, 09:49 AM
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#12
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Human being with feelings
Join Date: Jun 2008
Location: Whales, UK
Posts: 6,010
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Quote:
Originally Posted by kmaaj
This is something that I need to do in real time during playback, correct? In Ableton, I'd have to print on to another track. Is this true in Reaper as well?
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once set up, it'll ride the wet/dry dial of the reafir plugin automatically during playback - set the NR as above, as (usually) the first, (or after a High pass eq for example) insert fx, then set up the parameter modulation for 'last touched param' after twiddling the wet/dry dial. (see manual for further info on all that)
takes a little tweaking to get that in the zone depending on your material, then you'd just carry on tweaking your sound after that with eq etc.
its totally up to you to if you want to freeze or apply fx (print) etc to the take. mostly not necessary in reaper.
edit: - glad you like it guys it is one of my more pleasing reaper discoveries, as it just sounds better and not noticably processed..
noise reduction is usually a thing to to avoid, now i know that i can go there and not ruin a sound if need be.
Last edited by BenK-msx; 02-26-2013 at 10:03 AM.
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02-26-2013, 10:13 AM
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#13
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Human being with feelings
Join Date: Jun 2012
Posts: 453
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Quote:
Originally Posted by kmaaj
Sinner, exactly like that. I even first edit out things like my initial sitting down and that first deep breath, and try to select nothing but floor noise for the profile.
*edit: I do see one difference. My red line starts higher than yours and then drops to the same level as yours as it goes to the right. Should I try dragging that intial spike down?
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That red line just depends on the noise. The noise there is broad cause it was live and hd multiple sources of noise.
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02-26-2013, 02:09 PM
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#14
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Human being with feelings
Join Date: Aug 2009
Location: Marietta, GA
Posts: 278
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You could also try using a downward expander to push the low level noise further down. The JS:SStillwell/expander is very easy to work. Play with the threshold to find where the noise level begins, and play with the ratio to make a gentle or sharp drop in the level.
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02-20-2018, 03:34 PM
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#15
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Human being with feelings
Join Date: Jan 2018
Location: West Coast - Sun, Sun, and more Sun
Posts: 719
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I may be late, but the info is exactly what I needed....
__________________
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04-09-2018, 03:30 AM
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#16
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Human being with feelings
Join Date: Oct 2017
Posts: 75
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Quote:
Originally Posted by James HE
I always let Reafir build the noise profile, but then I will pull the entire threshold line down, closer to the noise floor. this still gets rid of most the noise, but has less artifacts.
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Your a legend! You just saved me from some very watery sounding noise reduction.
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04-09-2018, 03:31 AM
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#17
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Human being with feelings
Join Date: Oct 2017
Posts: 75
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Quote:
Originally Posted by BenK-msx
Hot reafir tip here... :-)
http://forum.cockos.com/showpost.php...69&postcount=1
Basically Ride the wet/dry of reafir with parameter modulation running from volume, to invisibily reduce noise reduction at high vols and increase as volume gets lower, often never getting 100% wet , eg max out at 90%. Sounds v natural.
Now don't tell anyone.
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Hell yeah
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04-09-2018, 09:58 AM
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#18
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Human being with feelings
Join Date: Apr 2012
Location: Chicago
Posts: 165
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Quote:
Originally Posted by BenK-msx
Hot reafir tip here... :-)
http://forum.cockos.com/showpost.php...69&postcount=1
Basically Ride the wet/dry of reafir with parameter modulation running from volume, to invisibily reduce noise reduction at high vols and increase as volume gets lower, often never getting 100% wet , eg max out at 90%. Sounds v natural.
Now don't tell anyone.
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Woah - I never thought about that. I get very hit-or-miss results using ReaFir, but I think this tip will definitely save some future takes.
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04-09-2018, 01:58 PM
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#19
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Human being with feelings
Join Date: Apr 2010
Location: Seattle
Posts: 5,637
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Quote:
Originally Posted by James HE
I always let Reafir build the noise profile, but then I will pull the entire threshold line down, closer to the noise floor. this still gets rid of most the noise, but has less artifacts.
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This is exactly what I do, too. Every time I move my rig, I take a "quiet" sample.
Recording in a crappy space is always going to leave you with something you don't want, and no removal method is going to be perfect.
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04-11-2018, 09:22 AM
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#20
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Human being with feelings
Join Date: Aug 2007
Posts: 74
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You could try using a Gate!
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04-13-2018, 07:31 PM
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#21
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Human being with feelings
Join Date: Jul 2011
Location: Brooklyn
Posts: 2,636
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Another good Reafir strategy is to use several in series, with the dry/wet knob set at 20 - 40 % instead of 100% wet, with each one taking its profile from the audio Reafir'ed up to that point. With the threshold pulled a little down, not all the way.
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The reason rain dances work is because they don't stop dancing until it rains.
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05-01-2018, 04:33 PM
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#22
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Human being with feelings
Join Date: Mar 2018
Posts: 18
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I'm a noob. What are the steps for this?
Quote:
Originally Posted by BenK-msx
Hot reafir tip here... :-)
http://forum.cockos.com/showpost.php...69&postcount=1
Basically Ride the wet/dry of reafir with parameter modulation running from volume, to invisibily reduce noise reduction at high vols and increase as volume gets lower, often never getting 100% wet , eg max out at 90%. Sounds v natural.
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I looked at the link above, and I understand the concept. I have been able to reduce background noise with ReaFir, and also with ReaGate, both with success. But I tried the above technique putting ReaFir onto Track 1, got my noise profile, and would like now to know the exact steps to set up parameter modulation to increase NR as volume decreases. I clicked on the PARAM button but don't know which choice to select. Also, in ReaFir I see an output volume fader, but not wet and dry faders. The ones described in the above link seem more consistent with ReaGate controls. Anybody willing to step through the routine and help me out?
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05-01-2018, 05:09 PM
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#23
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Human being with feelings
Join Date: Jun 2008
Location: Whales, UK
Posts: 6,010
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Ben's param mod reafir tip. circa 2011
Quote:
Originally Posted by WalterSK
Anybody willing to step through the routine and help me out?
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.gif incoming
full size:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1hst...ew?usp=sharing
The settings for attack and release are made up here, but shorter attack long release tends to work but they are material dependant - so adjust those, plus the input threshold plus the wet dry baseline, to taste.
almost forgot what to do but it's all there if you watch closely, and hey its on a loop...
to start, notice i twiddled with the wet/dry/ knob top right of the fx window,
then went to PARAM button etc.
can see by the end, the signal reduces the wet level then returns to max when goes quiet, which is what we want.
having the wet not at 100% as the baseline (top slider in param mod settings) - e.g 90 ish can help with invisibility too.
note: this may likely be my contribution to the world -
Last edited by BenK-msx; 02-24-2021 at 05:10 PM.
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05-02-2018, 12:07 PM
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#24
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Human being with feelings
Join Date: Mar 2018
Posts: 18
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Quote:
Originally Posted by BenK-msx
note: this may likely be my contribution to the world -
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Many thanks. I'm going to set it up and follow the steps. It looks clear to me. I hope some others who read this are helped, as well. I'm sure this approach can be applied to other paradigms, with other VST's
POST EDIT: The GIF was perfect, and I was able to follow the steps. Worked very well.
Last edited by WalterSK; 05-02-2018 at 12:49 PM.
Reason: Finished the trial...
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05-02-2018, 02:29 PM
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#25
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Human being with feelings
Join Date: Jun 2008
Location: Whales, UK
Posts: 6,010
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Cool stuff. no problem - enjoy your new powers.. and do try tweaks to optimize settings for your needs.
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05-03-2018, 02:42 PM
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#26
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Human being with feelings
Join Date: Dec 2016
Posts: 218
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Nice necro here.
Unless I missed it, I don't think someone mentioned this: lowering the FFT size also can help reducing the artefacts.
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05-03-2018, 10:04 PM
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#27
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Human being with feelings
Join Date: Mar 2007
Location: I'm in a barn
Posts: 4,467
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Quote:
Originally Posted by emarsk
Nice necro here.
Unless I missed it, I don't think someone mentioned this: lowering the FFT size also can help reducing the artefacts.
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A Higher FFT size will give you less artifacts, A lower FFT is less effective at pin-pointing the exact noise profile. Usually there is a sweet spot, and might take a few passes to find it.
Usually you'll want to build the noise profile with the same FFT size as you are planning to process with, but you can certainly experiment and switch things up. Sometimes you'll find a sweet spot where all the trash it puts into your signal becomes almost "musical"
For real tough sources where there is a constant noise, I've found using a higher FFT and then adjusting the entire threshold of the noise profile down a bit is the quickest way to get natural sounding but effective results.
For intimate sounding acoustic stuff where you are wanting to mask noise like breathing and the ruffling of clothing and things like that in addition to the general noise of the room, I'll probably go for a lower FFT and use the parameter modulation trick - When you nail that one it will sound a bit like you are making the room "breathe" a bit with the instrument. I'll do this on sources that don't exactly need it sometimes, just add some subtle character.
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10-31-2022, 01:44 AM
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#28
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Human being with feelings
Join Date: Oct 2022
Location: Denton, Texas
Posts: 3
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Dynamic (Smart) Noise Reduction in Reaper using Automation
Quote:
Originally Posted by BenK-msx
.gif incoming
full size:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1hst...ew?usp=sharing
The settings for attack and release are made up here, but shorter attack long release tends to work but they are material dependant - so adjust those, plus the input threshold plus the wet dry baseline, to taste.
almost forgot what to do but it's all there if you watch closely, and hey its on a loop...
to start, notice i twiddled with the wet/dry/ knob top right of the fx window,
then went to PARAM button etc.
can see by the end, the signal reduces the wet level then returns to max when goes quiet, which is what we want.
having the wet not at 100% as the baseline (top slider in param mod settings) - e.g 90 ish can help with invisibility too.
note: this may likely be my contribution to the world -
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As a total newbie in newbieland, I am very interested in Noise Reduction, upon reading
BenK-msx comment and watching the gif file I went looking on YouTube and found this video Dynamic (Smart) Noise Reduction in Reaper using Automation, I hope this helps other newbies.
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10-31-2022, 06:53 AM
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#29
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Human being with feelings
Join Date: Jun 2008
Location: Whales, UK
Posts: 6,010
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Well its nice people take the effort to make 12 minute videos to explain what I showed in a Gif. And without even a hat tip to the author. 2022 everyone!
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10-31-2022, 08:02 AM
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#30
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Human being with feelings
Join Date: Jan 2014
Posts: 5,220
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You may also get useable results from a simpler plugin first before ReaFir, or without it entirely.
This thing has been impressing me greatly:
https://bertom.gumroad.com/l/denoiser
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10-31-2022, 08:29 AM
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#31
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Human being with feelings
Join Date: Dec 2012
Posts: 13,335
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Fergler
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Thanks for the link!
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