Windows 10: Noise gate on global output, how to remove it?

I'm working in an older computer, Windows 7, there seems to be a global noise gate applied to the entire audio output of the system, and I have way to turn it off. I've gone to Control Panel>Hardware and Sound> Soundand have removed all enhancements I could found on every playback device. The two devices that does not have the "Not plugged in" status are the NVIDIA High Defition Audio Device Labled MStar Demo-4, and High Definition Audio Device labeled Digitral Aduio S/PDIF. Playing the same audio on another device eliminates the possibility that it is the audio source. Is there anyway

:)

 

Software to separate noise from the human voice or song

For audio, you could try Audacity. You can select a sample period where there is just the noise you want to remove, then filter that from the audio.

Noise Reduction - Audacity Manual

• How to Bring Out the Voices From Background Noises Using Audacity | It Still Works

 

[Windows 10] Bluetooth speakers FIX - Audio cuts, "noise gate"

Hi guys/gals

I´ve been crazy about this issue where your bluetooth speakers starts cutting the sound at low volumes or when you have certain sounds played (like rain sounds or something that sounds close to static noise) and took a whole day investigating this.

To make this history short:

What could be the causes?:

• It could be a Microsoft thing but it is a combination of hardware (speakers) and software (the OS). I didn´t have this problem while testing using android phones.
• The hardware (in this case bluetooth speakers) have some kind of battery preservation circuit where if they detect low volume "noise" (could be rain sound, wind, etc) it shuts off the audio to conserve power. That is called "noise gate", it
  prevents noise when you are "not using" the speakers (if you are a guitar player, you already know this term).

How do I fix this?:

• So, the thing here is that you cannot apply a clean fix for this. And with clean, I mean a microsoft patch, new driver or something like that.
• What you need to do is to send a "keep alive" noise constantly to the speakers to force them to shut off the noise gate and let all sounds ring. The good news is that a low level sound is good enough to do this and you wont notice its there because you
  can´t hear it. The bad news is that you will need to have a minimal sound player on the background (invisible) playing this sound in an infinite loop causing around %1 cpu processing all the time, this should be nothing for modern PC´s but I want to let you
  know "what is happening under the hood".

STEPS:

1. Download the zip file from my onedrive: here
2. Extract to folder "BT SPEAKER FIX" (it creates this automatically when unziping)
3. Double click "INSTALL.BAT"
4. Restart the PC.

What is this mysterious file?:

• The zip file contains a mini command line audio player called Sounder (all rights to the dev of the app)
• A 20hz .wav sound file
• 3 Batch files made by me:

start.bat (this will start playing the 20hz sound file on every reboot automatically on an endless loop)

INSTALL.BAT (this will create a folder called "FIX BLUETOOTH SPEAKERS" on your user profile folder and move all files there and also will copy start.bat to the startup folder in windows for automatic start on every
reboot (to see this do WIN + R and type shell:startup and hit enter)

UNINSTALL.BAT (this will stop the sounder process and delete start.bat from the startup folder so it doesn´t start next reboot)

If you want to completely delete all files you have to manually delete the "FIX BLUETOOTH SPEAKERS" folder in your user profile folder (usually C:\users\YOURUSERNAME) just make sure to execute "UNINSTALL.BAT" first so it deletes the automatic startup before
deleting the whole folder.

If it works then congrats!! your problem was like mine and it should be "fixed"If it doesn´t then check the usual troubleshooting, make sure the BT devices have good signal, reinstall drivers, etc... your problem is different than mine

Have a nice one everybody!

 

Noise/hiss produced by Windows(?) on the audio output (not a hardware issue)

In case you haven't already, ensure all inputs have been disabled and are not part of the mix you are recording. Just because you are recording what is being sent to the DAC, doesn't mean Windows hasn't already mixed in some electrical noise on an input. In fact, I would disable the input completely and lower the recording volume on the mix to zero.

To determine if the issue is hardware or driver related, I would install a different OS on a temporary drive, or boot from a USB key (https://www.ubuntu.com/download/desktop/create-a-usb-stick-on-windows).

If the problem goes away then it is a driver issue and you may have a chance of fixing it by manually installing an different driver version, or even a generic one if it exists. There is still a small possibility that it's a hardware bug uncovered by a driver-specific feature.

If the problem persists then it's quite likely a hardware bug. I would still check where in the boot process the noise starts (power on, after hardware init and POST, during OS bootup, after the first OS sound plays, after application start). If it's after the OS starts then you may have some luck with drivers. If it's before OS startup, then there is likely not much you can do, save for a firmware update.

Good luck!

Update 1

I have recreated your results using the following steps:

• Record the speaker output using WASAPI
  
• Export the file to a WAV file
  
• Open the saved file
  
• Amplify +50db
  

The result is a significant amount of noise and the spectrum analysis has the same shape as yours.

I have also recreated the result using these steps:

• Generate 30s of silence in Audacity
  
• Export the file to a WAV file
  
• Open the saved file
  
• Amplify +50db
  

Conclusion: The sound you see is generated by the algorithm that saves the file. The sound you hear is generated elsewhere, probably typical line noise.

As proof, try recording your speaker output and before saving apply amplification. If you are using the latest Audacity you will get a value overflow error b/c it can't handle amplifying complete silence. If you have at least one non-zero value in the selection, the amplification works.

Update 2

Further proof: Try saving your recording as 64 bit raw data, and then importing it again. For me this results in a file with no noise, that cannot be amplified again.