Filtering out the Vuvuzelas

If you're like me and are plagued by family members who must watch the World Cup in South Africa, you know very well about the constant bee-hive sound of the Vuvuzelas from the supporters. To avoid getting tinnitus from the thing, hook up your Mac between the TV and your speakers. Connect using the proper cable from the TV out into the Line In port on the Mac, and then another cable from your Audio Out / Headphones to your speakers. Then, fire up Logic and record enable a channel with a parametric EQ. (You could use GarageBand, but you'll need a better Audio Unit EQ installed. Or use Audacity in record-ready with Apple's AU EQ.)

This German site has a recipe which is pretty harsh, but definitely gets the job done. I prefer a milder approach, which is to have -24dB@233Hz, -18dB@466Hz, -12dB@932Hz, and -6dB@1864Hz. I also prefer a sharper Q, more like 5 instead of 3.4.

Can you sill hear some of the commentary when you filter these frequencies?

I vote to apply the filter at tv-broadcast level.
it might be fun, some sort of cultural habit... but hey - once you 've heared it its enough.

I know they are investigation such a filter at bbc as well as swiss television.
only problem is that its part of the culture of soccer there...

... but for once i vote for less noise. still much noise around from soccer-fans here - dang!

thanks for the post!
alf

Tomte wrote:Can you sill hear some of the commentary when you filter these frequencies?

A filter will always affect the rest of the sound, but in this case I'm surprised how little degredation there is of the commentary and gerenal crowd noise. Sounds a bit like a microphone or speaker wiring is out of phase, but I've heard much worse.

I never wanted to remove the vuvuzelas anyway - just reduce their complete domination. Luckily, it seems like more and more producers are taking measures now. (In the USA-England match, I could hardly hear any commentary at all... only the constant monotonous buzzing)

alphonse wrote:some sort of cultural habit...

Cultural habit it is, the habit of football fans to be as annoying as possible.

Well, if one is to believe the writings of Friedrich Engels and a bit of George Orwell, mass culture in the form of glorified sports events is a necessary evil in order to keep the masses from revolting. Just like in the book and movie The Running Man. That's certainly a dystopian thought, but I don't think we're there just yet