Concealing Cacophony
Over the last few weeks I have been publishing a series of videos on writing PHP extensions.
I record these videos through OBS, and then slice and dice them with Kdenlive. This editing is necessary to make up for my mistakes, shorten the time we wait for things to compile, and to remove the noise of me hammering away on my keyboard.
Editing takes a lot of time, and I still wasn't always pleased with the result as there was still a fair amount of noise while I am talking.
For the PHP Internals News podcast, I used a set of noise cancellation filters, which worked wonders. But it turns out that Kdenlive does not come with one built in.
I had a look around on the Internet, and learned that there is a LADSPA Noise Suppressor for Voice plugin. LADSPA is an open API for audio filters and audio signal processing effects. LADSPA plugins can be used with Kdenlive.
Some Linux distributions have a package for this LADSPA Noise Suppressor for Voice, but my Debian distribution bookworm does not.
I found instructions that explain how to build the plugin from source. These instructions worked after some tweaks. I ended up creating the following script:
#!/bin/bash sudo apt install cmake ninja-build pkg-config libfreetype-dev libx11-dev libxrandr-dev libxcursor-dev git clone https://github.com/werman/noise-suppression-for-voice /tmp/noise cd /tmp/noise cmake -Bbuild-x64 -H. -GNinja -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Release sudo ninja -C build-x64 install
After running this script, and restarting Kdenlive, I found the installed plugin when I searched for it.
With the plugin loaded, I now have much clearer sound, and I also don't have to edit the sections where I am typing, as the plugin automatically handles this.
I will still have to edit out my mistakes.
I then also had a look at how it worked. It turns out that this plugin uses neural networks to cancel the noise.
In the background, it uses the RNNoise library which implements an algorithm by Jean-Marc Valin, as outlined in this paper. There is an easier to read version of how the algorithm works on his website.
The data to train the model is also freely available, and uses resources from the OpenSLR project. Noise data is also available there. From what I can tell, all this data was contributed under reasonable conditions, and not scraped from the internet without consent. That is important to me.
Hopefully, from the third video in the series, you will find the sound quality much better.
Friday Night Dinner: Pascor
From the archive: We visited Pascor in January 2023
Right on Kensington High Street, near the Design Museum is Pascor. A Levantine “Fire” restaurant, which we picked as our first place to go to in the new year.
The restaurant is over two levels, with the lower part smaller, and close to a chilly door. Luckily we were sat in the roomier first floor, with cosy decorations. The restaurant is a tapas-y affair, and we shared the Challah Bread, the Reverse Tabbouleh Salad, a whole roasted aubergine, and the evening’s special: fish cakes, which were really fish cake croquettes. The dishes all came with sauces. Although they were fairly simple, they all packed a great flavour. The dishes came out as they were ready, and they all went great with the Lebanese red wine that we picked (a Château Ksara Le Prieuré Rouge 2018).
We also did indulge in desserts. My wife picked a Coconut “Beirut Meets Bangkok” Malabi, which was lovely sweet and moist with strong hints of pineapple. I choose the Chocolate Crémeux which was rich and indulgent with a flavourful blueberry sauce.
My only regret is not picking one (or two!) more dishes to share! Which is all the more reason to return, and sample some other delicious things that we saw coming out of the kitchen — perhaps when the weather is a little better.
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Friday Night Dinner: 50 Kalò
For tonight's meal, we walked to 50 Kalò, a busy restaurant just off Trafalgar Square, and situated in The Grand Hotel. Although you don't notice that it’s a restaurant attached to a hotel.
50 Kalò is a pizza restaurant and an off-shoot of their original Naples-based restaurant. It came with great reviews, so we punted on it. When we got there, we were quickly seated at a small table, with my chair nearly touching a chair on the table behind me. I am not keen on being boxed in like this, and despite the small gap, the staff still pushed through the gap between me and the diner behind, which was quite irritating. Fortunately, my wife spotted another free table without this constraint, and we moved.
The menu is full of Neapolitan pizza—in fact, that's what this restaurant specialises in. I selected a Prosciutto Cotto—roasted ham on a white base, with shavings of aged Parmesan. My wife chose the Del Monaco, which had a traditional tomato base, and came topped with salami. The pizzas were big and freshly cooked, arriving quickly. The pizza crust was slightly toasted and lovely and chewy, but in my opinion, the base could have been a little crispier. The shavings of fresh parmesan also added something extra to the overall flavour.
The restaurant also has its "own" beer, (three varieties) brewed in collaboration with Birra Amarcord, from Rimini in Italy. We both started with a "Forte," and during our meal, we enjoyed the other two, (a blonde and a red) as well. The beers were nice and complemented the pizza, but whilst tasty, they weren’t the most exciting beers.
Although we thought we were full from our large pizza, our waitress convinced us to have a special Easter-related dessert. The almond and orange cake was delicious, nice and fluffy, with a lovely freshness from the orange. It was a fitting end to the meal.
All in all, it was a reasonable meal out. The pizzas were nice, the service was quick, and the interior was lovely. This would be a good place to eat after a day of tourist-ing, and avoiding the nearby chain restaurants.
Shortlink
This article has a short URL available: https://drck.me/50-kalo-imp
Shortlink
This article has a short URL available: https://drck.me/noise-reduction-in6