Mac Sonoma, Voice Isolation

Alan

I am in the Mac beta program and am running the beta for OS, Sonoma.

A new feature is "Voice Isolation". When turned on, only your voice is passed through to the application, nothing else.

Voice Isolation works great with Mac SmartSDR. When "off", any background noise is passed on to my Flex Microphone in, such as just tapping on my MacPro PC. When "on", nothing is seen by the Flex, via MacSmartSDR, except my voice.

The public Sonoma will be available this fall.

Alan. WA9WUD

Alan

Also, a word of caution for LoopBack users.

If you enroll and use the Mac Beta Sonoma, and, you also use Loopback for moving audio.....be aware that Rouge Amoeba has not yet updated Loopback to work with Sonoma.

Alan. WA9WUD

Trucker

Does this feature work in both directions? In other words, will it also help clean up receive audio as well? That could be a good improvement and make using a Mac a lot more attractive.

James

WD5GWY

Alan

Trucker

Q- will it also help clean up receive audio as well?

No, it only works on the Mac Microphone.

It would've been a very good RX noise filter, but not to be.

Alan

Alan

Trucker and All.

I downloaded the public version of Mac Sonoma today.

And, yes! Mac Sonoma Noise isolation works on the received Smart SDR audio! ALL of the background noise is removed.

Alan. WA9WUD

Trucker

Fantastic! I have been testing several VST plug-ins and so far, Goyo has been the best. ( Windows 11) I guess I am going to have to get a Mac and Marcus's software to give this a try.

The best noise reduction I have tested is RM Noise ( not a VST plug-in) . But, the author doesn't want to make it a standalone application that doesn't need to connect to the internet for audio processing by a remote server using AI software for processing. Goyo uses AI as well and gets better the longer it runs. And, it's all client side processing. No off site processing needed.

Fun stuff!

Thanks for sharing.

James

WD5GWY

Alan

Update after using Mac Sonoma Voice Isolation.

I mis-spoke. Voice Isolation does not work on SmartSDR Audio out....directly. It does work out of the box on the SmartSDR microphone in. Works very nice to eliminate background noise.

I found Mac Voice isolation was working "indirectly" on SmartSDR audio out. I am running an audio control program called "Audio HiJack". It seems Mac Voice Isolation inserted itself between SmartSDR and AudioHiJack. As a result, it was removing all the background noise between these two applications.

So, I retract my comment that Voice Isolation works directly with MacSDR Audio out. But, if you want a "hack", give my find a try.

As far as noise cancelation performance, it was excellent....in fact too good for very low S/N signals. If you are trying to pull a weak signal out of the noise, this is not a good use. AGC-T is better.

Alan. WA9WUD

Trucker

Alan, thanks for the update. Still that's good news for Mac users wanting to improve their audio in SmartSDR for the Mac. Maybe Microsoft will release something similar for Windows some day. For now, plug-ins and other audio processing tools help improve SmartSDR's Noise Reduction. I wish that Flex Radio was willing to improve the audio at the source in SmartSDR instead of leaving Noise Reduction half baked like it is.

One can always dream!

James

WD5GWY

Alan

I made a video of Voice Isolation. Found 80M QSO, not very strong, with QSB.

Starts with VoiceIsolation off, then on.

Again, Voice Isolation is working via Audio Hijack, not SmartSDR.

https://youtu.be/Sg354Q4zW_o

Alan WA9WUD

W7NGA

Oh dear .. I am so old school, in that I preferred the QSO without any noise cancellation. It keeps me in check with the salient fact that I am listening to the 'Airwaves' and not on my cellphone. 🙄

W7NGA

Mike-VA3MW

Nice Demo Alan

Would that have worked better if the AGC-T was knocked down more? It seemed a tad high.

73

Alan

Mike

Q-"Would that have worked better if the AGC-T was knocked down more?"

No. Interestingly, when using Mac/AudioHiJack Voice Isolation, AGC-T was not a factor since Voice Isolation removed all the noise. Changing the AGC-T threshold had no effect.

In the video, you can also see the noise level changing (storms in the area), and Voice Isolation filtered it all out.

Voice Isolation filters out low S/N signals....so it's not suitable for digging out low-level stuff. AGC-T is much better in this case.

Alan. WA9WUD

Mike-VA3MW

Alan

My ask about the AGC-T settings would affect the dynamic range of the receiver and it will actually even reduce the amount of noise received. Or, are you saying the more noise the better?

73

Alan

With the AI noise filters I have tested, the more noise, the better. Doing so, seemed to me, to allow the lower S/N signals make it thru the AI audio noise filter. The AI voice filters all seem very aggresive towards removing everything it thinks is not voice audio.

Alan

K3SF

Hi alan

since loopback and audio hijack are so similar, have you tried it with loopback?

and

can you show how you have hijack configured?

I have loopback and will try out a configuration but having your HIJACK Configuration would help me.

THanks

Paul K3SF

K3SF

hi Alan

went ahead and tested using a loopback config on my mac book air M1

seems to work the same way with loopback too

Paul K3SF

Alan

Paul

It's good to see you have it working with Loopback—same idea.

If you use Audio HiJack, you can add DAW plugins to your audio stream. I process audio for both my microphone and for Speaker audio.

I am trying several plugins for AI audio noise elimination. As said before, the built-in Sonoma Voice Isolation works very well.... maybe too well.

I found that "Goyo" works well, and you can adjust the amount of noise removal. This DAW loads into AudioHijack:

https://goyo.app/

Also, AudioHiJack comes with free DAWs. Their Speech Denoise AI noise reduction works just as well as the Mac Sonoma Voice Isolation:

https://9to5mac.com/2023/05/30/audio-hijack-4-2-speech-denoise/

Alan. WA9WUD

Trucker

Alan, I have been testing Goyo and while it does work pretty well, it doesn't seem to be as good as RM Noise. And just like RM Noise, it depends on an internet connection to send the audio to a remote server for processing. I tried an experiment yesterday. I disconnected my switch from the router on my home network, removing the internet connection. Goyo when activated in VSTHost changes its interface to a stack of slider controls ( most are disabled) instead of the nice knob interface it normally uses. Reconnecting the router so Goyo can communicate with the server again, doesn't change the interface. But, it does activate nearly all the slider controls.

I received an email from the developers of Goyo announcing the upcoming release of the new program as well. For those that have been testing Goyo, it will be $29 for the software. It's $99 otherwise.

I also downloaded a beta update to RM Noise. It seems to have problems the earlier version didn't have. I am going to roll it back to see if it fixes the problem.

As for Voice isolation in Sonoma, I still plan to find a good deal on a used Mac and give it a try with SmartSDR from Marcus.

My one question is, since you mentioned AI processing for Voice isolation, is it processed locally or does it require a network connection to the internet for audio processing?

It seems to me that nearly every application or plug-in I have ran across, that uses AI for processing, requires an internet connection to send the audio to a remote server for processing.

James

WD5GWY

Trucker

Just re-installed Goyo plug-in and it's back to working great( with the knob interface) . I like that you can isolate just the voice audio. It seems to be better than I thought it was. I also uninstalled the latest RM Noise beta version and re-installed the previous version. I still hear some audio artifacts that showed up in the new, beta. I imagine the changes Randy made are also in the AI audio processing on the server as well.

James

WD5GWY

Alan

Trucker

I, too, am now using Goyo. Works great. I like adjusting the Ambient (noise) reduction level or just selecting "mute."

I am using AudiHiJack as my DAW to run Goyo and several other plugins and audio controls.

I like to turn off Goyo for low-level signals and needed a way to do this easily.

AudioHihjack has an API to allow control from scripts....so I wrote a script to turn Goyo on/off. The script also appears in the ShortCut App as an "action." So, I now have a ShortCut on my Mac desktop to turn Goyo on/off.

StreamDeck has a Siri ShortCut plugin, so I also have a StreamDeck button for controlling Goyo.

Alan

Trucker

Glad to hear that Goyo is working for you. I really like it. And if it really doesn't need a network connection to process the audio, I plan to purchase it once it is formally released. In the email I received from them,they stated that an internet connection will only be needed to activate and deactivate, the plug-in. It wasn't clear if that is with each time it is used or just for initial setup. I am hoping it is a one time thing and not each time I go to use it. I prefer a standalone plug-in that doesn't require an internet connection to use it.

Thanks for the update on your setup with Sonoma and Voice Isolation. It's nice to have more than one tool in the box!

James

WD5GWY

Trucker

I guess I jinxed things. Goyo is back to the slider interface with the limited controls. I guess the server is offline or something. RM Noise on the other hand, is working great. It would be nice if Flex Radio would fix their Noise Reduction and Automatic Notch Filter so one doesn't have to mess with 3rd party tools to fix basic features. If I was more conversant in audio processing, I would write an application to use with DAX and Warren Pratt's WDSP library ( NR0V) to process audio locally. I may still give it a try. It's not like I have a job now that I am retired. But, I know there are developers out there who are much smarter than I am and probably could build an app much easier than I can.

James

WD5GWY

Charlie_KB8CR

I was using VB-Cable A&B with Ventura with good results. I upgraded to Sonoma, and now I can RECEIVE with VB-Cable, but when I try to transmit, no audio is sent to the radio, and the SWR meter goes to infinity. I also cannot transmit any longer with the built in FT8 app in SSDR for Mac.

I had also just installed Parallels Pro, but even without it running, the same result.

any help?

Charlie KB8CR

Alan

Charlie

Sonoma uses a different CODEC than Ventura.

I found this, too, when my Rogue Amoeba Loopback failed after upgrading to Sonoma.

Rogue Amoeba upgraded all their apps to now work with Sonoma, so no more issues.

I suggest you move from VB-Cable to the latest version of Rogue Amoeba Loopback for your virtual audio cables. It is very stable.

Running Windows on Parallels will have no impact on your Apple Sound CODECs.

Alan. WA9WUD