WAHM Forums
The WAHM community forum was created to be a place for work at home moms to share their ideas and stories. In the forum you can find information about work at home jobs, starting home businesses, avoiding scams, and surviving the WAHM lifestyle. In support of the WAHM community, WAHM.com also features instructional articles, easy recipes, as well as job and business listings tailored specifically to work at home opportunities.
View Full Version : Cleaning up old/poor audio files
LadyGator88
01-27-2011, 05:42 AM
I have been volunteering to transcribe oral history archives for a couple organizations. The most recent project that I received has files that are old interviews and the audio is poor. There is a garbled humming noise that is continuous through the recording. I want to compare it to listening to an LP record vs a CD. The noise would just be a nuisance, however, the speakers are sometimes soft spoken and it makes transcribing difficult.
Is there any way to clean up the noise? Are there any software programs or techniques? Or am I just going to have to take it as it is? I receive the interviews from the organizations as an MP3 file and load it into ExpressScribe.
Transcribing is not my paying day job. I began to volunteer when I was exploring other job options. Thank you for any advise you can give me!
Janet
Is there any way to clean up the noise? Are there any software programs or techniques? Or am I just going to have to take it as it is? I receive the interviews from the organizations as an MP3 file and load it into ExpressScribe.
Transcribing is not my paying day job. I began to volunteer when I was exploring other job options. Thank you for any advise you can give me!
Janet
cloakzore
01-27-2011, 07:34 AM
Express Scribe has some functions that allow you to do this. Right-click on the file you are working on and apply High Pass Filter. There is also a Background Noise Reduction function, but I find the High Pass Filter usually does a better job. You can do both of them as well.
Some people use FTW Transcriber and say it has better audio quality, but I have no experience with that program.
Some people use FTW Transcriber and say it has better audio quality, but I have no experience with that program.
pawp11
01-27-2011, 03:40 PM
There are lots of audio programs out there. I have not actually played with the one I downloaded but plan to soon. Do a google search for a free audio filter or editing or something like that. The one I found is called Audacity, but I honestly haven't even glanced at it yet. I am not necessaily suggesting it or not. I downloaded another that was horribly complicated and confusing. I am sorry I don't remember its name.
But in short, yes there are things to help. I always try ES first though. If you don't like the changes, you can always start over with the original. I second the suggestion of trying another program for playback such as FTW or The Record Player.
Good luck!
But in short, yes there are things to help. I always try ES first though. If you don't like the changes, you can always start over with the original. I second the suggestion of trying another program for playback such as FTW or The Record Player.
Good luck!
cloakzore
01-27-2011, 07:18 PM
^ Audacity is a great tool as far as free audio editors go.
LadyGator88
03-05-2011, 06:12 AM
Thank you for your advice. This was a three hour interview from the early 1980s with a lot of hiss and hum. I ended using ExpressScribe, applying the High Pass Filter for the first draft. Then, I proofread the draft using The Record Player. What a difference The Record Player was to ExpressScribe. It elimated much, if not all, of the hisses and humming.
