Researchers at the University of Salford have developed an algorithm to improve user-generated sound recordings.
Professor of acoustic engineering Trevor Cox said sound quality on phones, video recorders and dictaphones is often poor; distorted or noisy with garbled speech or indistinct music.
“People are often disappointed when they play their recordings back, after a concert or a party, but there is a real lack of understanding as to why,” said Cox.
So, with funding from the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council, Salford University in collaboration with BBC R&D and The British Sound Archive, established the Good Recording Project, a three-year investigation into increasing demand from consumers and from broadcasters who often use amateur footage which is compromised by sound quality.
The team asked thousands of volunteers to explain what they thought was interfering with the quality of sound on clips recorded in living rooms, on the street and at gigs, including at the Glastonbury Festival.
“It could be microphone handling noise, distortion, wind noise or a range of other conditions. What we have worked out is a way of automatically assessing the relative impact of these sound errors,” he said.
“We’re used to having visual processing improving our photos, such as the camera that spots faces and changes exposure, but we have not had the same tools to do the audio equivalent.”
The algorithm, which makes it possible to tag content and quality, has already been applied to an app for assessing wind noise, which alerts the user when there is significant risk of the sound being affected.
Rapid quality assessment could determine whether the sound is of broadcast quality without time consuming manual auditioning.