Getting rid of background noise

This is a specialised function. Sonar EQ's might be able to filter out some of the noise but then you are going to affect the interview as well. If its a low rumble for example filtering may help. With this sort of stuff often you need to go into another program that has specialsied noise reduction capabilities or get a noise reduction plugin to do the same inside Sonar.

It helps if the background noise is fairly consistent then the noise reduction processes will work better. Not easy.

I had a speech that had constant mic feedback from the PA.  I was able to reduce it substantially by sweeping a narrow eq and isolating that frequency.

izotope RX   you will be amazed

Ara
Unbelievably Great Music

.

. I'm amazed that SONAR did not include a noise canceling filter in its own program

It does, It has gates and expanders and EQ.
Also, with digital reocridng, there is suppose to be NO noise introduced. Just the noise of your instruemnt.
Maybe you should have done a better job of finding a quiter location in the field. Its never good to fix these things in the mix anyways.

The noise reduction software is also good for not only removing unwanted background noise in say an interview etc but it can be priceless for getting rid of unwanted noise in the music we produce too. eg I was working on an album with a guy who had a guitar amp that was just getting noisier and noisier over the time of the production and it became almost unusable. So I started doing noise removal on the tracks and was able to pull out all the noise and leave the guitar tracks pristine etc.

Also if you are recording soft vocals or voice over in a slightly high room tone environment you can pull that out too carefully, leaving the vocals in tact and turning your less than ideal studio into a perfectly quiet space.

Mike is so right about doing repeated passes of low reduction each time. I used to work in a post production studio for film and TV and we used that software all the time. I use the one built into Adobe Audition too. But there are amazing programs like CEDAR which can literally take out all the noise of a busy intersection over dialogue. Then you put the SFX of the intersection back in but at a lower level.

The reason Sonar does not include it is that it is rather specialised in its use. It also is hard to use and takes a fair bit of practice. If you are too heavy handed with it you can screw up the sound you want to keep.

mike_mccue


Geez,

You guys are off the pavement.

Noise is.

It's a good thing to know how to deal with it.

best regards,
mike

It usually though is dealt with in audio editing software.

Yes but there are situations like the one I described above for example where the noise in a guitar amp is getting very loud. No gate or EQ is going to solve that problem. It is only going to shut things off when the guitarist stops but the noise will be back when they start etc.

Noise reduction software is powerful but many people dont know either that it exists or how to use it properly. It can do things that cant be done any other way.

But we should endevour to make sure things are not noisy to start with and I certainly agree with that. And if you do this you wont need noise reduction software often.

I once worked on a soundtrack where an interview was conducted near an air vent. It was like there was a constant roar in the background. Only noise reduction software was able to pull it out almost completely. It was like magic! No other way to sort an issue like that out with any amount of filters or gates etc..