Radio sound

[Robinhansen]

Can anybody help me whith a radio sound tutorial. I use Gold Wing Sound Recorder. I've read bloodmixers sound tutorial but I did'nt found the answer I was looking for.  
What I need to know is how to make sounds like as they was a radiotransmission. ;D ;D

[Torak]

You don't need to do much - modern radios are largely digital, so the sound quality tends to be pretty good. The Ra180 I operated had very clear sound, it was pretty much like talking on the phone. The distortion inherent in the microphone should be ample - use a moderately rubbish one and you won't need to modify the sound at all.

[Robinhansen]

Hmm that's true...but remember Cold War Crises takes part in the mid 80's. I don't belive any military radios was that good at that time...

[Torak]

We also used the Ra138, which has been around within the Swedish Air Force since, I think, the late 70s. Still fairly good sound quality, but more of a "traditional" radio crackle. Easy enough, by adding an automatic noise filter to the sound file.

Incidentally, the 1938 pattern field telephones we used had excellent sound quality - and a troubleshooting manual that was summed up by our Captain as "If it doesn't work, bash it against a tree until it does. If it still doesn't work, it wouldn't have worked anyway."

[Robinhansen]

Do you think the Russians had such good radios ?  

[Torak]

Wouldn't bet on it. I was in Sweden, so we got our stuff pretty much direct from Ericsson. (And Ericsson *still* make better mobiles than Nokia, but I guess this isn't the right forum for that war... )

[Leech]

say u were doing a WWII mission or sumthing     and you DID want radio sounds (regardless if its realistic).......how would u do it??

[Kaarna.fi]

I think the question still remains... How to make the sounds recorded in Gold Wave sound like they are a radio transmission ? (Noise, etc.)

All I can see is Noise Reduction, but I want to do the opposite! Although I'm not quite sure how to use this tool, so can I also use it backwards ?

[Skorp1on]

Hold the mic real close to your mouth, splutter into it, or have a TV with whitenoise on it in the background. Haven't tried these but it might help.

[Johan_D]

I played with it a while ago, and yes, in Goldwave there are some distortion filters what give the right effect..

Johan

[Dinger]

clip the low and high bandwidth too.  It's not just the static and popping, it's the microphones and speakers.
Yeah, I got decent results from turning on some AM static in the background, and filtering out below I think 1000 hz and above maybe 6000.  

[General Barron]

Here is what I do, step by step. It ends up sounding pretty good. Note that I am using version 4.26, so you are likely using a newer version than me. If so, some things may be in different places for you:

  Increase the volume--usually it records much softer than you want to play it at. If you increase the volume AFTER adding in the hissing, the static becomes way too loud. I usually up the volume 200%, but it will depend on your recording.

  Next, we lower the sound quality. Choose the "bandpass/bandstop" filter. Choose "bandpass" (it's the default) and make the range 300mHz to 4000mHz. Make sure you have the whole clip selected.

 ;D Now to add a little hiss. Open up the "dynamics" window (under the effects menu). You should see a little line graph. There should be a "preset shapes" option. Select the "hiss noise" shape. There should be a zig-zag in the middle of your line now. You don't want to use this though, because it will add WAY too much static to your sound. Place your mouse over the two white dots on the corners of the zigzag. Drag them closer to the middle of the line, until they are almost straight. Just a tiny amount will do it. Check out the attatched picture to see what I mean. Call it "radio buzz" and save this filter for later use (so all your clips have the same level of distortion), and apply it to the whole sound.

EDIT I can't attatch the image, so I've posted it here:

http://www.freewebs.com/general-barron/images/radiobuzz.jpg

 :-X Now you are done with Goldwave. You may want to apply more filters, but I suggest you don't. Keep in mind that you still need to convert to OGG, and that will drastically change the sound. I use dBPowerAmp music converter. NOTE: make sure you don't save files as OGG with Goldwave, or edit and save OGG files. It will mess up the conversion. Use dBPowerAmp or another music converter. Here are the settings I use to convert my radio sounds:

  mono
  32 kbps
  12000 Hz

That gives good compression without losing too much sound quality. Note that for music files I use different settings that keep more sound quality (but make a larger file).

  Hope that points you in the right direction!

[jbluvchild]

i thought the game adds radio static automatically?

[General Barron]

The game adds some static sound at the beginning and the end of the sound, but it doesn't alter anything inbetween (i.e. the actual sound you record).