Audacity's Equalizer

msirois · Post by **msirois** » January 9th, 2007, 8:47 am

I'm 31 chapters into a 62 chapter solo recording, and someone finally proof-listened to what I have so far (thanks, Alan). Through my headphones I didn't notice how bad the sibilance was until Alan mentioned that he had noticed a lot of it while listening in his car. I had used Spitfish on the chapters, but apparently had actually made my essing worse. He suggested using an equalizer on the chapters instead of a de-esser. I tested Audacity's Equalizing Effect on a few chapters (pre-Spitfish), and it did seem better.

I'm tempted to go back and run the equalizer on the raw files of the first 31 chapters, but most of the presets on Audacity's Equalizer are a little bassier than I would like. The Columbia LP setting isn't bad, but isn't quite right either. Does anyone know if there's a way to add a custom preset to Audacity's equalizer (just a gradual slope from 0 on the low end to maybe -10 or so on the high side), or will I have to set that for each file by hand?

Michael

Chrisczech · Post by **Chrisczech** » January 9th, 2007, 9:14 am

It would appear from the Audacity forum that this will be a feature of 1.3.

See Here: http://audacityteam.org/forum/thread/3437

hth
Chris

msirois · Post by **msirois** » January 9th, 2007, 9:18 am

Well, it's a simple curve, a few extra clicks and drags (that I'm needing for now). Not too bad, I guess. But it will be a nice feature for future recordings.

Thanks,

Michael

Chrisczech · Post by **Chrisczech** » January 9th, 2007, 9:25 am

The beta version of Audacity 1.3 is available for download, and can apparently peacefully co-exist with 1.2, so if you want to try it........

Hope you get it sorted.

Chris

Cloud Mountain · Post by **Cloud Mountain** » January 9th, 2007, 9:29 am

Are you running Audacity Windows?

msirois · Post by **msirois** » January 9th, 2007, 9:30 am

Windows XP, yes.

Cloud Mountain · Post by **Cloud Mountain** » January 9th, 2007, 10:08 am

I think what I'll do is fiddle with one of your current recordings through my 30 slider equalizer and find a place that's pleasant for me. Of course all of this is subjective.

Don't have Audacity with me here so can't check to see if it has a parabolic equalizer, with will be far more accurate (after lots of twiddling) than one with sliders. These are much more fun to work with once you get to know how they work. (Yes, there's a solid learning curve.)

Might be good to experiment recording with settings on "wet," that is reocord WITH equalization so it's laid down in the tracks, rather than in the export.

Problem with computer de-essers is that they often pull of the s altogether and in doing so, turn it into a lisp!

Good luck!

msirois · Post by **msirois** » January 9th, 2007, 10:18 am

Can I record wet in Audacity? I didn't see anything in the settings that would allow me to set equalization levels during the recording. Or would I need to to get some kind of mixing board to go between my mic and audacity (to use as a side chain)?

Michael

Cloud Mountain · Post by **Cloud Mountain** » January 9th, 2007, 11:18 am

msirois wrote:Can I record wet in Audacity? I didn't see anything in the settings that would allow me to set equalization levels during the recording. Or would I need to to get some kind of mixing board to go between my mic and audacity (to use as a side chain)?

Michael

I mispoke. I don't think you can with audacity. I don't reocrd on my computer anymore; record on my digital external BR-600 recorder which records wet or dry.

Well, I'll try the exqualizer tonight for you...

msirois · Post by **msirois** » January 9th, 2007, 11:58 am

Thanks, Alan--

That's nice of you. You just have the mp3's, right? They've already been run through Spitfish. Would you like me to upload an unprocessed wav file of one of the chapters to my server for you to grab?

Michael

Cloud Mountain · Post by **Cloud Mountain** » January 9th, 2007, 5:55 pm

msirois wrote:Thanks, Alan--

That's nice of you. You just have the mp3's, right? They've already been run through Spitfish. Would you like me to upload an unprocessed wav file of one of the chapters to my server for you to grab?

Michael

year. that'd be a better idea. if you don't have a storage space, i'll PM you the password for my uploader link (shown in my sig. below.)

msirois · Post by **msirois** » January 9th, 2007, 6:00 pm

Hi, Alan--

Here's a wav file of Chapter 08 (37 MB). It's ready to be processed (edits are done, and it's trimmed and timed). I'll delete it off this server once you tell me you've got it from here or from your uploader.

<<former location of the file, which was there previously and is no longer there currently>>

Thanks,

Michael

Cloud Mountain · Post by **Cloud Mountain** » January 9th, 2007, 7:17 pm

msirois wrote:Hi, Alan--

Here's a wav file of Chapter 08 (37 MB). It's ready to be processed (edits are done, and it's trimmed and timed). I'll delete it off this server once you tell me you've got it from here or from your uploader.

http://ceee.rice.edu/temp/librivox/penguin_island/clean_edit_penguin_island_08_france.wav

Thanks,

Michael

Got it. Yer free to delete. C.f., recent PM.

Cloud Mountain · Post by **Cloud Mountain** » January 9th, 2007, 9:12 pm

http://www.drakesdoor.org/reducingS/

msirois · Post by **msirois** » January 10th, 2007, 7:52 am

Thank you, Alan--

I just finished listening to the equalized samples. You're right, the worst of my sibilance starts in the 800Hz range, heading toward the high end. It was very helpful to have the screenshots of the equalizer panel to accompany the changes in equalization on the wav sample.

So, in Audacity, you're saying that something like this would probably be the best equalizer setting for my voice, yes?

I think the stridency you're referring to (in other ranges) is probably just a combination of old-age-throat and early-morning-gunk-voice. I probably need to warm up a bit more too, but sometimes I'm too asleep to remember to do that

Anyway, thanks again,

Michael