Alrighty...we just made our first recording. It
should look like this:
This is a healthy recording. Not too robust, so we have room to
enhance without distorting, we have a stereo file and we're looking at the
system in our one screen Fast Edit Mode. Seeing sound is a great
thing. Not only can we adjust and edit with our ears, but now we can
see things that we may have not easily heard in the past.
So, this is recording. Not too bad, eh?
Now let's start using the tools. For that, we're going to start
with a known file, rather than the one you just recorded, so just go to
the file menu and click on File/Open Source
Now we want to open an audio file to start the demo.
After DC SIX Opens, just click on File, then click on Open
Source. You’ll see a
Window that looks like this:
Next, open the Demo1 Wave file by double-clicking
on it.
Note:
Remember, this demonstration is
applicable to DC Millennium, DC SIX or DC SEVEN, they may all not default
to the correct directory. If your computer doesn’t
automatically open to this “Wavefiles” subdirectory, no worries.
In that case, simply click on the arrow pointing down just under
the Open menu bar and beside the My Documents entry and navigate to C: (or
whatever your main drive letter is) –Program Files-Diamond Cut
Productions- Whichever product you have- Wavefiles and you’ll now see a
screen that looks just like the one above. It should have a wave file in it called Demo1.wav
After you’ve opened the file, your DC SIX and
Millennium should look like this:
DC
SEVEN launches in a single screen Fast Edit mode, but you should still see
the waveform in the window. It will probably be blue rather than
black, but no big deal.
Now we’re going to activate the
transport system so that you can hear this file.
The
transport system has 3 buttons that we’ll worry about right now. If
you’ve ever worked with a standard cassette tape recorder, these will
all seem very familiar to you.
This is the Record Button, we've already dealt with it in
our first recording.
This is the Stop Button
This is the Play Button
Listen to this file by
either clicking the Play button or hitting the spacebar – Ouch, this
file is full of clicks, hiss, low frequency noise, etc. It’s a mess.
Stop the playback when you’re done listening. You can do this by either hitting the space bar again or by
using the Stop button.
Now for the fun part.
Click the Filter Menu and choose EZ-Clean.
The filter looks like this:
Important
Note: DC Millennium does not have EZ-Clean.
Just click here to skip this tutorial and move
to one that you can actually perform with the software.
Notice that there are only three sliders, one for
scratches or clicks, one for crackle (or small clicks) and another for
hiss or other continuous type noises.
We are simply going to listen to the audio and move these three
sliders as we listen.
Move each slider to approximately
the settings shown above.
We don’t need to be perfectly accurate, just set them similar to
what you see. When you move
these sliders to the left, the filtering becomes more aggressive. Now click the Preview button.
You’ll start to hear the audio.
Listen for a second or two.
Now click the checkbox labeled Bypass. This “bypasses” the filter and stops the filtering.
You are now hearing the original music without the filters in
place. Note the large amount
of clicks and hiss. Uncheck
the Bypass box to start filtering again. What a relief! That’s
much better isn’t it? But,
you can do better yet. Move
the Hiss slider a bit farther to the left until you get all the
noise out. Remember,
moving the sliders to the left, makes them filter more, so just slide
them until you are happy with the result.
Want to have some more fun?
Click on Keep Residue.
This filter lets you hear the noise that DC SIX is removing…some
times, it’s easier to hear what you’re taking out than hearing
what’s left. This can be a
useful tool when you’re close to finished and want to make sure you’ve
removed only what you want to remove.
Now note the Hum filter on the EZ-Clean screen.
If you live in the US, you’ll check the 60hz box to remove power
line hum. If you live in
Europe, you’ll check the 50hz box.
There are many other tools to remove larger amounts of hum in DC
Six, but this one is quick and easy.
Now, stop the preview by clicking on the Cancel
Button in the Preview box. Click
on Run Filter and you now have a destination file that is fully
cleaned! Could this
possibly be any easier? Note
how visually different the before and after files are.
Hit Close on the EZ Clean.
You begin to see what “noise” actually looks like.
Please continue on with the Easy Restoration guide below.
It starts your education on how to use individual tools and goes
into more depth on the overall concept of DC Six.
Since EZ-Clean is so easy, you don’t really get a feel
for the overall program. This
guide assumes you will use individual tools and will perform a restoration
in a series of steps.
You work with DC SIX by choosing filters to apply to
audio. Some of the filters
remove noise and others enhance the audio though they are all referred to
in this guide as filters. You
choose a filter by identifying the type of noise you want to remove and
then selecting the filter that removes that type of noise.
Make sense so far, right?
In just about every case when clicks and pops are
present, we want to remove them first.
Trust us, this is the right first step whenever you get clicks and
pops on records or other recordings.
To remove the clicks, we’ll choose the EZ Impulse
filter. Clicks are short
noise impulses so it makes sense to use this filter.
We’ll continue using the demo1.wav file.
Make sure that your top wave file is highlighted in yellow.
To choose the filter, click on the Filter menu item and
choose EZ-Impulse Noise. You’ll see the filter open like this:
Figure 1-
The EZ Impulse Filter Appears
Note that the filter takes up only a portion of the
screen. You can still see
part of the waveform and all the menus and icons.
You can move this filter window around on your screen and position
it wherever you want. Just grab
the title bar at the top of the filter window and drag it around.
Try it now.
Figure 2-
The EZ Impulse Noise Filter
In the filter window, you will see several features.
First, you’ll notice sliders that control various filter
parameters. These sliders can
be adjusted while you listen to the audio as you did with the EZ
Clean filter, so you will instantly hear the result of any changes you
make. Our sliders are labeled
Scratch and Crackle in this filter.
Next, you’ll have Radio buttons that control other
aspects of the filters. Again,
you can change them while listening, so you’ll hear the results
instantly. The radio buttons
in the Impulse filter are Speed and Accuracy.
In every filter, just like our EZ Clean demo, you will
have a Preview button. This
is the most important button here. This
button will start the audio playing while the filter is processing it.
You will hear the results of the filter instantly.
This makes for easy adjustment of the filters.
Also in every filter, you will have a Bypass
checkbox.
This takes the filter in and out of the audio stream instantly.
When you listen to a filter being applied by the Preview button,
you may want to be able to compare the processed audio to the original
audio. Clicking this checkbox
will bypass the filter and you’ll be hearing the original audio.
Unchecking it will instantly put the filter back into the signal
path. This way, you can
“fine tune” even subtle effects with DC SIX.
Lastly, every filter will have controls for Presets.
A preset is a saved group of settings for this filter.
Go ahead and drop down the Preset box now – it’s
the white box at the bottom of the filter.
Click on some of the presets and watch the sliders as
they move to good starting points for common tasks.
You can tell a lot by looking at the name of the presets.
Now select the preset labeled Default.
This one is already set up with good settings for our Demo1 file.
Every filter will also have a Save and Delete button that allows
you to save your own presets under any name you want – and delete them
too!
You’re probably ready to try this filter by now, but
there is one more thing that is common to each filter that you should
know. Hit F1 now on
your keyboard. Notice
that our online Help comes up with information on this specific filter.
This context sensitive help is available for each and every filter.
Put the Help screen away
and let’s clean some audio. If
you’ve already been listening to this filter, then shame on you for
jumping ahead. Simon has not
said click the Preview button yet. As
punishment, please go back to page one of this tutorial and start reading
again. We’ll wait for you
here.
Welcome back. Now
let’s get started by clicking the button labeled Preview.
You will hear the audio as it is being filtered.
You will still hear the low frequency rumble and the hiss, but the
clicks should be gone. Let
it preview all the way to the end of the file.
Notice that once it reaches the end, it will automatically
start over at the beginning. This
is called Looping and is automatic when you are previewing with a filter
(though it can be turned off in the Edit/Preferences screen).
Let’s just confirm that the clicks are gone.
To do this, check the Bypass box in the filter while
it is still previewing. Now
the filter is bypassed and the clicks will once again be audible.
Listen for a while and then uncheck the Bypass box.
Now the filter is again doing it job and the clicks are no longer
heard.
It’s time to learn how to adjust a filter.
While you are previewing, move the two sliders to the bottom.
This makes the filter less aggressive and it will filter less.
Notice that the clicks return as the sliders are moved down.
Moving them back up results in more and more of the
clicks getting removed. All
the filters work this way – you just adjust them while you listen.
As you might expect, if you move them too far up you’ll make the
filter too aggressive and you’ll get distorted, stuttering
or
otherwise bad audio – just move them up enough to get the desired
result. Set them both
at 50.
Now click on Cancel in the Progress window
seen here or just click the Preview button again:
Figure 3-
Monitor your progress
This stops the preview from playing. By Previewing, we have adjusted the filter and confirmed that
it is doing its job. The next
step is to click on the Run Filter button.
This takes the filter just as you have set it and applies it to the
demo1 file and creates a new file in the lower window.
This new file has been run through the filter and has the clicks
removed. At this point, click on Close in the EZ Impulse filter
window since we’re now done with it.
Look at the two waveforms.
The top one is called the Source.
This is where we normally work on a file, preview filters, etc.
The bottom is called the Destination and is the result of our
filtering efforts. You can
play either one by clicking in the respective window.
You have not changed your original file at all – rather we’ve
created a new cleaned up version.
Now it’s time to remove that rumble sound, but how can
we do that if we work on the Source window
and
we really want to remove the rumble from the semi-clean file in the
Destination window? The
answer is a little command under the File menu called Make Destination the
Source. This moves the file
in the bottom window up to the top where we can work on it.
Click on File/Make Destination the Source now.
A File Selector box will come up and suggest a new name
for this file; just click on Save to accept it. Note: DC
SIX will automatically assign sequential names to new files.
While you’re new to the program, always just accept its
recommendation as to file names.
Now we are ready to remove that low frequency rumble.
To do that, we’ll choose the High Pass filter.
Click on Filter/High Pass now.
A high pass filter will remove all frequencies below a certain
point and allow all higher frequencies to pass.
Drop the preset box and select the preset called “Demo
audio Wave file de-rumble”.
It’ll look like this:
Figure 4-
The Highpass filter
We’ll start to go a bit quicker now since you already
know what most of the buttons and controls do on this filter. To find out specific info on this filter, don’t forget you
can call for help by pressing the F1 key.
We are going to free you now to preview and play with this filter
on your own, but when you’re done, return it to these settings by once
again clicking on the demo Wave file preset.
Run the filter when you are ready. Now click on Close to close this filter.
You now have removed two of the annoying noise types in
this file. First, we rid
ourselves of the clicks and pops, and then we removed the rumble. Now it’s time to get rid of that loud hiss sound.
First, remember to move our Destination file up to the Source
window.
Now click on Filter and select the Continuous Noise
Filter. This filter
is perfect for hiss and other types of continuous noise.
Also, click on View and make sure you have Time Display
checked at this time. The
Time Display box shows you various timing calculations with the program
and will come in handy, as you will see.
Your screen should look something like this:
Figure 5-
The Continuous Noise filter is awake
The Continuous Noise filter is one of the coolest in the
whole program so follow along carefully here.
This filter will remove just about any continuous noise in a
program, but it needs you to give it a sample of this noise. Once it is able to examine the noise, it will be able to seek
it out and get rid of it. Play
the file now using the Play button at the top and listen carefully
to the first couple of seconds. You
will hear an area right at the beginning, which contains only the noise
and no good audio. That’s a
great spot from which to grab a sample of the noise.
To do this, we need to click and drag with our mouse to
select this area. The area
highlighted in yellow in the illustration above is the area we want to
select. Just click
about ½ inch from the left edge and, while holding the mouse button, drag
all the way left. Let the
mouse button go and you will see an area highlighted in bright yellow.
This is the area you have selected.
Move the mouse pointer over either edge of the selected area and
the pointer will turn into a Left/Right indicator.
Click and drag as necessary to select an area from the
beginning of the file that is about .5 seconds long.
Use the “Span=” display in the timer window to
confirm that your selection is around ½ second long.
Now hit the spacebar.
You’ll play only the selected area.
It’ll be quick. This allows you to audition a selected area to make sure you
are really working on the correct area (does not contain silence or
desired signal). You should
only hear the hissing noise. Again,
your selected area should look like the one shown above.
It’s time for the fun part.
You will like this. Hit
the Sample Noise
button
in the Filter window.
The filter will analyze the noise sample and will display the
frequency characteristics of the noise in red.
The blue line is the filter that has been designed to get rid of
this noise. Notice how they
track with each other. Yours
should look like this:
Figure 6-
Continuous Noise Filter does its job
If you have jumped ahead again and clicked on Preview,
there will be no lunch for you today.
First, we’ve got to explain those little blue dots on the filter
line. Notice how the blue
line is above the red noise sample? The
higher the blue filter line, the more filtering occurs at that frequency.
The blue dots are called Control Points
and
allow you to adjust the amount of filtering for frequency components in
the vicinity of the control point manually.
We’re going to do that in a second, but the Help file contains
all the complete info on this filter.
Before we click on Preview, we need to again select the
whole file so we’ll hear the whole thing and not just our ½ second
noise sample that is now selected. To
select the whole file, just double click anywhere in the waveform
display. Notice how
the whole thing gets highlighted in yellow.
Now, go ahead and click on Preview.
Listen to the audio.
The clicks are gone. The
rumble is gone and the hiss is gone!
Well, not quite. You
can still hear a bit of hiss can’t you?
While Previewing, click the bypass button a few times
to take the filter in an out of the signal path.
Yes, the hiss is reduced, but there is still some of it there.
Let’s adjust this filter to get rid of all of the hiss.
Make sure your bypass button is NOT checked and make sure
you are previewing the audio. Now
grab the 2nd control point from the right side and move it up a
bit as shown below.
Figure 7-
Tackling the remaining hiss
It’s like magic, isn’t it?
The hiss completely goes away because you told the filter to be a
bit more aggressive on the high frequencies.
Remember, moving the blue line up makes it filter more.
Now stop the preview, click on Run filter, and close the
Continuous Noise filter.
You now have a Destination file that is completely
restored. To finish, click
on File/Make Destination the Source, accept the file name and you’re
done. This file is
the completed version and all others can be deleted or saved if you want
each processing step before and after the saved file.
You can now exit the program or close the files using the commands
under the File Menu.
Let's
finalize things a bit...click here to skip the
Millennium Getting started guide and go to the Chapter 5.
DC
Millennium Comprehensive Guide
As
we've stated before, DC Millennium is an older product, but if you're
clinging to Windows 98, then you still have a powerful noise reduction
product at your disposal. The process of cleaning up your demo file
is virtually the same as with our newer software products, so let's get it
on.
First,
let's remove some of those annoying clicks. Just go to the Filter
menu and launch the Impulse filter. It looks like this:
And when it launches, it looks like this:
All of the filters in our programs work about the same.
You have a Preview button, which auditions the audio with the filter
you've set up in place. This is where you experiment with the
filters while you listen to the changes in realtime. Go ahead and
click on Preview. Slowly move the sliders to the following
positions:
Do you hear the noise disappearing? That's how easy
it is. Preview dials it in and then when you've got it sounding
good, you hit Preview again to stop playback and then Run Filter to make a
new file that is what you just heard. It looks like this:
The lower window is called the Destination Window.
This is where the results of your filtering are placed after you run the
filter. Notice the difference in appearance? All of the big spikes
are now gone. Those spikes were clicks. We still have a way to
go to make this song sound great, but clicks are not our problem
anymore.
Now we want to take the file on the bottom and do some
more work on it. The top window is called the Source window and that
is always the file we're working on. If we want to continue, the
first thing we have to do is move the wave file in the bottom to the
Source window so we can continue on our quest to perfect that wave
file. To do this just go to the File Menu and click Make Destination
The Source. It looks like this:
This simply moves the wave file onto the operating table
so that we can continue work on it.
Our next step is to work on that annoying continuous
hissing we hear on this file. Continuous noise means the Continuous
Noise Filter. Just go to the Filter Menu and click on Continuous
Noise Filter. It looks like this:
When it launches, it will look like this:
This filter is perfect for hiss and other types of
continuous noise. Also, click
on View and make sure you have Time Display checked at this time.
The Time Display box shows you various timing calculations with the
program and will come in handy, as you will see.
Your screen should look something like this:
Figure 5-
The Continuous Noise filter is awake
The Continuous Noise filter is one of the coolest in the
whole program so follow along carefully here.
This filter will remove just about any continuous noise in a
program, but it needs you to give it a sample of this noise. Once it is able to examine the noise, it will be able to seek
it out and get rid of it. Play
the file now using the Play button at the top and listen carefully
to the first couple of seconds. You
will hear an area right at the beginning, which contains only the noise
and no good audio. That’s a
great spot from which to grab a sample of the noise.
To do this, we need to click and drag with our mouse to
select this area. The area
highlighted in yellow in the illustration above is the area we want to
select. Just click
about ½ inch from the left edge and, while holding the mouse button, drag
all the way left. Let the
mouse button go and you will see an area highlighted in bright yellow.
This is the area you have selected.
Move the mouse pointer over either edge of the selected area and
the pointer will turn into a Left/Right indicator.
Click and drag as necessary to select an area from the
beginning of the file that is about .5 seconds long.
Use the “Span=” display in the timer window to
confirm that your selection is around ½ second long.
Now hit the spacebar.
You’ll play only the selected area.
It’ll be quick. This allows you to audition a selected area to make sure you
are really working on the correct area (does not contain silence or
desired signal). You should
only hear the hissing noise. Again,
your selected area should look like the one shown above.
It’s time for the fun part.
You will like this. Hit
the Sample Noise
button
in the Filter window.
The filter will analyze the noise sample and will display the
frequency characteristics of the noise in red.
The blue line is the filter that has been designed to get rid of
this noise. Notice how they
track with each other. Yours
should look like this:
Figure 6-
Continuous Noise Filter does its job
If you have jumped ahead again and clicked on Preview,
there will be no lunch for you today.
First, we’ve got to explain those little blue dots on the filter
line. Notice how the blue
line is above the red noise sample? The
higher the blue filter line, the more filtering occurs at that frequency.
The blue dots are called Control Points
and
allow you to adjust the amount of filtering for frequency components in
the vicinity of the control point manually.
We’re going to do that in a second, but the Help file contains
all the complete info on this filter.
Before we click on Preview, we need to again select the
whole file so we’ll hear the whole thing and not just our ½ second
noise sample that is now selected. To
select the whole file, just double click anywhere in the waveform
display. Notice how
the whole thing gets highlighted in yellow.
Now, go ahead and click on Preview.
Listen to the audio.
The clicks are gone. The
rumble is gone and the hiss is gone!
Well, not quite. You
can still hear a bit of hiss can’t you?
While Previewing, click the bypass button a few times
to take the filter in an out of the signal path.
Yes, the hiss is reduced, but there is still some of it there.
Let’s adjust this filter to get rid of all of the hiss.
Make sure your bypass button is NOT checked and make sure
you are previewing the audio. Now
grab the 2nd control point from the right side and move it up a
bit as shown below.
Figure 7-
Tackling the remaining hiss
It’s like magic, isn’t it?
The hiss completely goes away because you told the filter to be a
bit more aggressive on the high frequencies.
Remember, moving the blue line up makes it filter more.
Now stop the preview, click on Run filter, and close the
Continuous Noise filter.
You now have a Destination file that is completely
restored. To finish, click
on File/Make Destination the Source, accept the file name and you’re
done. This file is
the completed version and all others can be deleted or saved if you want
each processing step before and after the saved file.
You can now exit the program or close the files using the commands
under the File Menu.
