The task for today's lab was to download a wav file called 'speechtone.wav' from the supplementary materials blog (here) and examine the file audibly, in time and frequency. Since I decided to carry out this task on my laptop at home (due to not being able to concentrate in the lab) I used Adobe Audition CS 5.5 to view and edit the file.
Here is what the sound file looked like when I first opened it:
Here is what the sound file looked like when I first opened it:
I found the file incredibly difficult to listen to or work with due to the tone in the background. To be perfectly honest it made me feel like putting my fingers in my ears! Despite my discomfort from my hypersensitive hearing I still attempted the rest of the task.
The next part of the task was to devise a strategy to improve the quality of the speech contained in the wav file. The first thing I tried was to add a special effect of 'speech enhancement'. This did not seem to improve the actual quality of the speech though.
I then tried another effect (after undoing the first) called 'speech volume leveller'. This particular effect only seemed to reduce the volume level of the entire file, not specifically the speech.
The last effect I tried was to 'normalise' the wav file. This did improve the quality of the speech, but also made the background tone even more unbearable to my ears!
I will come back to the last three parts of the task once I have worked out a strategy to make the background tone less painful to listen to.
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I could not work with the file without hurting my ears, so after doing some research I decided to write down what I think would have worked instead.
The next part of the task was to devise a strategy to improve the quality of the speech contained in the wav file. The first thing I tried was to add a special effect of 'speech enhancement'. This did not seem to improve the actual quality of the speech though.
I then tried another effect (after undoing the first) called 'speech volume leveller'. This particular effect only seemed to reduce the volume level of the entire file, not specifically the speech.
The last effect I tried was to 'normalise' the wav file. This did improve the quality of the speech, but also made the background tone even more unbearable to my ears!
I will come back to the last three parts of the task once I have worked out a strategy to make the background tone less painful to listen to.
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I could not work with the file without hurting my ears, so after doing some research I decided to write down what I think would have worked instead.
The speech in the file is hard to make out because there is a continuous tone in the background. This tone has a consistent sound level. Therefore to remove the high-frequency tone you could go into the Spectral Frequency Display, select the high frequency area and remove it. To improve the speech left behind you could apply a vocal enhancer effect.
To make the voice sound angry you could increase the volume and also make the start of each word louder.
Lastly, to make the file sound as if it was recorded in a church hall a convolution reverb could be added to it.
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