I believe Izotope RX does this, along with a lot of other audio restoration stuff. I don't know how well.

Izotope RX 2 Advanced is very good at cleaning things up. The spectral editor from the first version is what was incorporated into Adobe Audition's mastering tools and can be very effective. Big K uses a different one and there was a third spectral editor that I can't remember off hand.

A cheaper way is to gate those particular tracks so the non audio portions are silent.

Thanks for the replies...

Yes, I'm playing with the Izotope RX 2 demo right now, pretty powerful and seems it would be worthwhile to have in my arsenal.

Yes, I applied gates right off the bat so those tracks would be silent when not actively used. Trouble is when they are used (vocal tracks and guitar tracks taken from direct outs on sound board. The guitars were both via DI so no bleed problems, just a lousy stage snake, I think, feeding the board. 3 of my 4 channels have hum. Phase flipping reduces one of them a bit, but not enough for the client's satisfaction.)
Do you think the features found in the "Advanced" version warrant the almost $800 USD difference in price? I need to do a more thorough research on that issue.

Anyway, thanks for the response, I think Izotope was the software I couldn't remember. I'll keep testing out the demo.

Jeff

The cedar Cambridge debuzz is amazing for those kind of things, but it's in another league...
If you have only a few tracks i could try and put it through our cambridge if you want.

Thanks for the offer, niclaus, you're a saint... (bad xmas humor).
But I've purchased Izotope and it is working miracles... even the strongest hum & buzz succumb to its powers! It will save this job for sure and probably many more to come.
Thanks to all, and Merry Christmas (or Happy Holidays, if you prefer)!

Jeff

Did you end up with Rx2 or Rx2 Advanced?

I went with the standard Rx2, I figured if deemed necessary I would upgrade to Advanced at a later time, if/when needed. The fact is that 95% of my work is tracked here in my studio where hums. buzzes and extraneous noises are nonexistent, so I doubt that I'll be buying the Advanced. Heck, I'm amazed at what the standard version is doing what it's doing for the price. I has already paid for itself just by saving this one project!

Jeff

Diagnosing your hum troubles

Out of curiosity...

Do you have an open-ended cable plugged in (even to an unused DI box)? It will refract on itself and cause RF buzz/ hum when the channel is turned on with no instrument plugged in.

What's the difference between the one channel without hum and the others causing you trouble? Open the snake and the connectors up to check the ground wires and soldering. Swap cables with the good channel and try changing their position on the board to see if the problem moves to another channel. Wiggle the connected cable ends and listen for crackling or loss of signal. If it's not the snake or cables then it's the equipment or a grounding problem.

Do you have a computer plugged into the board that's ground looping? If so, stick a media DI with ground lift between it and the board (like the Radial Pro AV2).

I'm not sure how your studio and equipment is set up so I'm just throwing ideas out there. You may already know all this stuff anyway.

mdb, thanks for responding!

This was a remote gig, the FOH board / PA / stage snakes all belong to and were operated by the venue. I merely took feeds from the "direct outs" of their board. There was no time to even listen for hums much less diagnose them. My interface and computer were plugged into the same outlet as the board, no ground loop. Pretty sure they have faulty stage snake and DI boxes, all of which were out of my control.

I have absolutely no such problems in my studio, and I rarely do remote gigs, so being in this situation is rare for me. But the Izotope software has solved my problem.

Jeff

For reasons like this and others, I almost always try split as close to the mic's as possible. I have my own splitters for that purpose-both 1:2 and 1:3. If the FOH wants to control phantom I let them unless they are complete morons. This eliminates nearly all of that sort of noise problem. Of course that means I have my own preamps or board at the gig too.

It would be beneficial to take your own DI boxes too (although maybe the guitarist should supply their own - is that their responsibility or ours?). I did sound at our church a month ago and one of the DIs ground lifts wasn't working properly and I had to change it out. I hate garbage DIs. Quality is the only way to go.

When you are contracted to record a live session like that, typically the best you can hope for is taking a split-either yours (best) or direct outs from one of the boards. Any other gear is the band's/sound companies responsibility. I do carry some problem solver tools with me that happen to include DI boxes but that is very touchy thing to start stepping on someone else business however incompetent.

Well, as always, I gave the client the run down: we can do it cheap or we can do it right. He chose cheap. The risks / tradeoffs were explained ahead of time. This way there are no surprises when problems like this arise. Anything from the board forward was not my domain, not my problem. He knew the risks and chose to gamble. Fortunately, I'm always willing to invest in tools that will benefit my business in the long run, so I didn't mind popping $300 for Izotope to keep the project afloat.

Jeff