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Re: hiss reduction

Subject: Re: hiss reduction
From: Walter Knapp <>
Date: Wed, 10 Mar 2004 20:49:15 -0500
From: "Barb Beck" <>
> 
> Another thing to remember when removing hiss from recordings you want others
> to hear is that if your high hearing is going even somewhat you can create
> something which sounds just fine to your ears but "dead" and unnatural to
> somebody who hears the high stuff well.  You can even find some commercial
> stuff which has been overprocessed.

Or, conversely, there are lots of folks who think their high hearing is 
perfect and adjust their recordings accordingly. Making way too much 
high frequency emphasis and poor low frequencies. There are probably far 
more folks like that than ones who, by some miracle, still have the high 
frequency hearing of their youth.

Overprocessing works both ways. It's amazing how many folks will get 
into painful detail about their equipment, process the sound to their 
taste using their hearing, and don't have a clue to what their own 
hearing is like in detail. If you are haggling over the lint on the 
sound, you should haggle even more over the lint on your hearing. Get 
tested, at all frequencies, know what your ears are doing. And don't 
just test once and think it does not change. There are inexpensive kits 
available to self test that can do a fairly decent job of tracking it.

I know my high frequency hearing is far worse than it was when I was 
young. It's one of the reasons why I process with a realtime sonogram 
display in the chain. Helps a lot. Also helps to deal with that 
impression there is a lot of high frequency stuff to worry about. Only 
in real close recordings, not the norm for nature recording. And even 
there it's a minor component.

A sort of hiss or ringing is another thing that can happen to folks 
hearing when they age, or abuse their hearing. I expect some are trying 
to remove something that's not in the recording. Find what you want to 
remove in a sonogram first. If it's not in the sonogram, it may be you.

Walt




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