Help with noise reduction on delicate string section

[Mr. Liszt]

I have a session that I put together in which some nasty unavoidable noise was captured.

I had hired a cellist and written and arrangement for a song of a band that I am working for. The space, a large concrete and brick foyer inside of a corporate office building, unfortunately had a fan, furnace or something or other running that was apparently, for whatever reason, not possible to remedy. Prevention is the best policy but the space and cellist were difficult to book. My gear was there and everything was set to go and there are deadlines so there was nothing I could do. To make matters worse, because I had hired one cellist to perform, through multi-tracking, the duties of a section of seven cellists, the noise is compounded by the fact that there are 21 tracks (three voices were tracked per chair.) I told the band, "Hey, don't worry about it. It will just sound like we tracked to tape!" I had to say something positive.

Despite the noise, I did capture a fine performance of the arrangement. But, and maybe I am asking for too much here, I want to see if anyone can help me out with some advice/tips for noise reduction. It would be best if anyone with tips is familiar with Logic Pro 8 and using noise reduction in a classical music context. I have everything available in that program including the "Denoiser" and "Noise Gate" plugins but I cannot seem to get a result even near passable with those plugins as I do not understand how to use them with something like this. The arrangement is such that I can't use the plugins to the effect that I can with tracks having extreme transients such as a kick drum or tom track or something. I have no access to any other plugins or systems and the project is near the end and the budget is gone. So I'd like to work with what I've got if possible. And I'd like to learn to do it as well.

This track will be mixed professionally and, maybe I am just paranoid, but I would feel embarrassed as tracking engineer and the producer to take such a mess in. Even though the other parts of this ballady rock track, drum kit, guitars, bass, vocals, will most likely mask the noise and I have no doubt that this could be taken care of by the mix engineer in the mixing session, I'd rather bring the highest quality that I can.

Thanks and have a listen to the attached mp3 if it helps at all.

[Recording David]

Post a wav or aif and I will remove the noise for you.

[Corran]

Try out the "Reafir" plugin that comes with Reaper (you can use it in any VST-capable DAW). It works quite well.

[BlackestEyes]

Izotope RX is awesome for noise removal.

[Mr. Liszt]

Originally Posted by Recording David

Post a wav or aif and I will remove the noise for you.

Oh, wow. Thanks so much David! That is so kind. Because I may have to mix individual voices of the section, would you mind to process 4 separate WAVs? If that is too much too ask I understand.

[Recording David]

Originally Posted by Mr. Liszt

Oh, wow. Thanks so much David! That is so kind. Because I may have to mix individual voices of the section, would you mind to process 4 separate WAVs? If that is too much too ask I understand.

No problem. The easiest way is probably to upload them to MediaFire and then post links to the 4 files for me.

[huub]

Gearslutz is cool..

As long as you ignore advice given by amateur idiots and people saying I know they cancel out completely but they stll sound different I don't care about your "science" and people discussing the sound of DAWs and such

[Mr. Liszt]

Thanks, David. Here is the link

[matthewd]

Sound like Dave will sort you out which is great. I thought I would mention, I send such things to Cedar - it seems little known that this manufacturer of probably the most high end restoration / forensic audio systems here in Cambridge has a studio and they offer a bureau service which has got me out of a few scrapes before now and I am always shocked at how cheap it is yet you get the benefit of all the software on the latest Cambridge system.

We can buy pretty good restoration plug ins of course from all sorts of manufacturers but personally I don't find I have the time to experiment with all the parameters to find out what does and doesn't work whereas these guys live and breathe it and restore audio all day long so are very attuned to it - I have never been anything other than astounded by the results.

Matt

[Alexey Lukin]

12 dB reduction in RX: zip.

[videoteque]

No problem

A couple of hurras for David!!! And also for Alexey who won in the time domain!!!

[Recording David]

Aha - Alexey beat me to it! Anyway, job done.

[Mr. Liszt]

Thanks so much guys. Especially to David and Alexey! You are both wonderful!

[Mr. Liszt]

Originally Posted by huub

Gearslutz is cool..

As long as you ignore advice given by amateur idiots and people saying I know they cancel out completely but they stll sound different I don't care about your "science" and people discussing the sound of DAWs and such

Well, LOL... I don't care, or even read or notice arguments regarding the sound of DAWs.

But otherwise... Indeed! Gearslutz is like panning for gold nuggets in a western American stream. Only there's more gold...

[Remoteness]

Simply awesome -- what a killer community we have here.

More power to each and everyone of you folks!