Voiceovers: Eliminating Background Noise

[Zoukwave]

I hired someone to come over to my place and provide some voiceovers which I recorded on my pc with a microphone that looks like a microphone. I actually had two microphones available, but the Shure 515SB was not producing a good enough quality sound, maybe because it's more suited for capturing live instruments, so I wound up using a mic I had purchased years ago combined with a separate tiny mixer at a Best Buy. Upon recording the voice, we were unable to eliminate this low frequency background noise that appeared upon playback. Could not figure out where it was coming from. What software can I use to edit out that unwanted noise? Thanks.

[drumpusher]

Im sure there is a plugin in Audacity that could do it. Failing that take a sample of the noise, invert the phase and layer it underneath the track for a quick and dirty fix.

[mainstreamdjs]

I am not sure what you are using, but you cant make chicken soup with chicken poop. You usually need a decent mic and a decent mixer to get a clean recording. Once you have a clean recording, then you can count on vsts and eq to really help your sound. I make drops with a 100 dollar mic and a cheap interface- comes out sweet. Really depends on what you are using.

[Mystic]

It also sounds like your room that you are recording in isn't treated for live sound recording. This can be very tricky and somewhat difficult to do because you need the room dead... but not completely. Every noise you make will reflect off surfaces so you need the proper treatment to prevent that.

[de.j.l]

It also sounds like your room that you are recording in isn't treated for live sound recording. This can be very tricky and somewhat difficult to do because you need the room dead... but not completely. Every noise you make will reflect off surfaces so you need the proper treatment to prevent that.

get a big box, line the inside with pillows and you're set.

[Subprime]

Noise gate?

[mostapha]

Noise gate?

100% wrong. Because, as dumb as it sounds, gates are either open or closed. They don't eliminate noise while you're playing/singing…only when you're (vaguely) silent…which makes them basically useless for actually dealing with noise.

My advice…hi-pass the whole thing and–in the future–get a better room. At the very least, get a longer mic cable and put the vocalist in a different room from your computer. Fan noise is really annoying.

[Mystic]

I'm actually building a new vocal booth for doing vocal work complete with touchscreen monitor to control my DAW from inside.

[Skeyelab]

How long is it? As well as mastering, we specialize in forensic audio restoration, so removing some noise should be rather easy.