TV episodes
150+. Location audio arrived unusable. It aired.
From unusable to undeniable.
Noise removal, restoration, and speech enhancement for recordings that have to be heard.
01 — The premise
Most recordings hold more than what is audible on first listen
A phone in a pocket. A camera across a parking lot. A doorway argument caught on a smartwatch. Speech survives under hum, behind traffic, inside a codec that discarded half the signal.
Noise and speech occupy the recording differently. Separating them is a technical problem with technical answers, and the answers have improved enormously in the last five years.
02 — What we do
Noise out, speech forward
Removed
- Traffic, wind, crowd, HVAC, and machinery.
- Room tone and reverberation from hard, empty spaces.
- Mains hum, buzz, and electrical interference.
- Handling noise, clothing rustle, pocket and bag muffling.
- GSM interference, dropouts, and mobile network artefacts.
- Tape hiss, wow, flutter, and analogue transfer noise.
- Clipping and distortion from levels set too hot.
- Codec artefacts from heavily compressed files.
Recovered
- Intelligibility in dialogue that was buried, distant, or muffled.
- Usable level from recordings made too far from the speaker.
- Speech through a competing sound source, where the two are separable.
- Overlapping speakers, pulled apart where the recording allows.
- Audio out of proprietary CCTV and DVR containers, bodycam, dashcam, voicemail.
- Digital transfers from cassette, microcassette, MiniDisc, and DAT.
03 — The assessment
A written answer in 1–2 business days
Send the original. You get back what is recoverable, what is not, and what it costs. No fee, no retainer.
If there is nothing there, you hear it from us before you spend anything.
04 — How the file is handled
Your original is never touched
We work from copies. The file you send is preserved exactly as it arrived, with its metadata intact, and returned to you unchanged alongside the restored version.
Every process is applied in a documented chain rather than baked in. Nothing is irreversible, and every step can be reproduced from your original.
05 — The report
Documented when it needs to be
Court and insurance work needs a written record: every process applied, in order, with settings. Another engineer, given your original file and that report, arrives at the same result.
That removes the processing itself as a line of attack. Where a matter does not need it, we do not price for it.
06 — Where we stop
Restoration, not analysis
We do not authenticate recordings, detect editing, or identify speakers by voice comparison. That is court-expert work, and we will point you to someone on the register who holds the appointment.
Whether a recording can be used in your matter is a question for your lawyer, not for us. We make it audible. What it is worth is their call.
07 — Who sends us work
- Attorneys and law firms, for recordings in evidence or being weighed before they get there.
- Private investigators, for surveillance, covert recordings, and field interviews.
- Private individuals, for harassment, workplace incidents, and family or property disputes.
- Insurers and internal corporate investigations.
- Public authorities, where in-house capacity is committed or the format is unusual.
08 — Why this studio
Salvage is the day job
Most dialogue post is salvage. Location audio arrives compromised and still has to air. We have done that at volume and on deadline.
Dialogue salvage
20 yrs. Feature, broadcast, and game audio recovered from bad source.
09 — Get in touch
From “you can’t hear anything” to “there it is.”
Send the file. We will tell you what is on it.