How to Silence Vuvuzela Horns in World Cup Broadcasts | Hacker News Reader

How to Silence Vuvuzela Horns in World Cup Broadcasts

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124 pointsnreece78 comments

There was a thread at a music production forum I frequent on a specific Audio Unit plugin (Mac only, I think) from Prosoniq that does more than just a band pass, but performs some kind of heuristics to isolate the specific sound and remove it without cutting other sounds that overlap that frequency (such as announcer voices).

I haven't tried it, but it has its own site: http://www.vuvux.com/

It's free; it appears to be a rather clever "vuvuzela only" demo of their full de-mixing package.

There's also these Waves presets for anyone owning waves plugins

http://www.waves.com/content.aspx?id=5798

There's a cultural studies paper for anyone who wants it in software programmers versus throngs of Africans with 5 cent plastic noisemakers. "Subjugation By Software: How Tech-Savvy Westerners Wrote Africans Out Of The World Cup In Real Time" would pick up plenty of citations.

More like: "How Tech-Savvy Westerners found a way to satisfy their complete cultural ignorance and inability to accept or understand cultures other than their own"

Speaking of "complete cultural ignorance", you might want to do a little research into South Africa's long, splendid history of singing at public events, which at the football at least, the vuvuzela has largely destroyed.

No need to do research. I am South African, I live in Johannesburg. I was at a world cup game on Monday (Netherlands vs Denmark at Soccer City). The atmosphere was amazing, partly because of the vuvuzelas. I don't care about the history, they are part and parcel of South African soccer at present, and makes this world cup unique.

It's possible that live the vuvuzelas are amazing, but on my TV it sounds like a group of angry bees are flying around, probably because the sound is reduced to two channels (left, right). But I must say, in the Netherlands vs Denmark match, the vuvuzelas weren't that awful.

Having been to one game so far, I can confirm that the experience is very different live vs. on-tv.

Then again, I don't find them annoying on tv - so there may be personal bias.

Is uniqueness in and of itself a virtue? Or being "part and parcel of x"? Hooliganism used to be part and parcel of the English game; that didn't mean it was a good thing. The blowing of vuvuzelas at football games might have many things to recommend it, but merely being part of current practice is not one of those things.

your argument fails to fulfill its original point - i.e. you haven't successfully argued why uniqueness isn't a virtue.

There certainly are cases where other factors are more important, but I for one value uniqueness - especially when it comes to differentiating one's self on a global scale.

Not so—I'm merely pointing out where the burden of justification lies, not staking out a contrary position. Merely asserting that something is unique doesn't serve to justify the implication that uniqueness is a virtue.

Uniquely annoying for all of us watching on TV.

Fair enough :) I did think a while after that my comment may have been rather too blunt. I can certainly accept that the vuvuzelas are part of the modern culture and that to remove them would be to remove the South African flavour from the event.

Just be careful of rashly accusing people of "complete cultural ignorance" when it's a really just a benign matter of people wanting to enjoy the football in the way they're accustomed.

The people who defend the vuvuzela are often the ones with the least awareness of South African soccer traditions. Google "Jon Qwelane ban vuvuzela" to understand the rich history of South African fan traditions before they were drowned out by blaring horns.

And of course the follow up -- how long does something need to exist before cultural relativism kicks in. 20 years?

Originally made out of tin, the vuvuzela became popular in South Africa in the 1990s. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vuvuzela#Use_outside_football_g...

According to the WP article "This type of plastic horn or trumpet has been used in Mexican stadiums since the 1970s."

I remember them being used at cricket & football matches here in Australia in the 80s, till they were banned for being too annoying, just as they should have been in South Africa before this rot set in.

On the other hand, they ruin the culture of the game; singing, drums, chants, reactions to a goal or a near miss... those are all drowned out. There has to be a compromise that doesn't completely eliminate them but also doesn't ruin the culture of the game.

In South Africa, they are the culture of the game. Different countries, different cultures.

More like a cultural fad...

As a Tech-Savvy Westerner I accept that you guys won't stop blowing your cheap plastic horns and I understand that it's really annoying.

Fortunately there is a difference between "cultural ignorance" and "spoils my enjoyment of the game".

It's not a very "nice" sound (on TV anyway)

I absolutely LOVE the sound of these Vuvuzelas - I don't understand why there is such a fuss over them.

I find the drone puts me into an almost trance-like state where my focus and concentration abilities increase dramatically. I imagine I'd quite like having these things blaring while playing on such a grand stage as the World Cup.

I love stadium sounds and I usually hate when broadcasters cut out all the crowd singing, etc. BUT the vuvuzelas are in such number than instead of making single horn sounds it's just a 100% BZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZzzz all the game. When you watch one game, it's ok, when you watch more, or all the games, it's annoying as hell, rly.

It's very different when you're at the game - the vuvuzelas near you are distinguishable and you can hear people singing.

Obviously that's not ideal for watching it on tv - the vuvuzelas tend to drown everything else out when it's all recorded - but I'm not sure what the ideal solution is, because there's no way that anyone here in South Africa would accept a ban.

The obvious - and implemented - solution is to adjust the audio signal for TV viewers.

Everyone wins.

I prefer the other sounds that crowds make such as cheering, booing, singing, playing drums, banging the stands in sync, the occasional trumpet. The Vuvuzela totally blocks all of these out, replacing them with a monotone buzz. To me it destroys a lot of what is great about watching soccer.

Try coding with them playing in the background for a week and let us know if productively increases ;)

Or visit HN with this link http://www.vuvuzela-time.co.uk/news.ycombinator.com :D

Not an apiarist by any chance are you? ;)

The unfortunate monotonous sound that is heard via the broadcast is nothing like what it sounds like in the stadium. I was at the Italy - Paraguay game and it was a very different, awesome, experience.

I am surprise no broadcaster is still offering a vuvuzela filtered match yet. edit: ah ok: they are actually doing that. http://soccernet.espn.go.com/world-cup/story/_/id/5287552/ce...

If you ask google for mplayer sinesuppress you get a whole page of command lines that remove vuvuzela sounds from broadcasts, for example: http://verbo.se/open-source-vuvuzela-killers

[edit: fixed link, this supid cell phone doesn't support copy&paste]

I understand that fans that excited but for those who are not in the stadium and watching on tv, I am even ready to pay my broadcaster if there is a way out to mute the honking sound or atleast keep it away when the commentators are talking!

What, people don't like the sound of the swarms of killer 15 foot bees? Seriously, they should filter that mess out - it's headache-inducing. Maybe put the with-vuvuzela sounds on the SAP audio channel.

There's also this -- antivuvuzelafilter.com -- a noise canceling MP3 for ~$4.00.

EDIT: Yup, you're right. Wasn't until I read more into the details did I notice what they were doing. Killing the hyperlink to post http://isophonics.net/content/whats-all-about-vuvuzela instead.

Uh, no, that won't work at all. You can't noise cancel something without dynamically responding to it somehow.

Any evidence this isn't a scam? I thought antinoise had to be in close sync with the source -- requiring an actively adjusting system, rather than a static MP3.

Well, you sort of could use a static MP3, as long as you had some way of adjusting the phase - i.e. pause/unpause it for a moment, randomly till you get it to match.

That will work for an absolutely rigidly pure sine wave of identical frequency, and even then produces a cancellation moire pattern like this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Two-point-interference-rip... , not universal cancellation. Any frequency deviation whatsoever will produce something different. Trying to use this technique to "cancel" things that aren't sine waves and aren't even constant frequencies won't have any cancellation effect, it'll simply be two sounds instead of one.

(Record yourself saying something. Record yourself saying it again. Flip the phase of one of them and add them to each other. You can do this until the sun goes out, you'll never get a "cancellation", you'll just get two voices. A nice effect in some cases, it's one of my favorite things about 60s pop music even if it got overdone to the point of cliche, but not cancellation.)

Or, to say it another way, that won't work.

It is not possible to universally cancel one wave with another not in the same position. Noise-cancelling headphones work by, with great effort and with some fast processing, creating a small zone where frequencies human ears can hear are dampened to a significant degree where the eardrum is. This comes at the cost of making it louder in places where the ear drum isn't (which we don't care about), and IIRC at the cost of some very high frequency noise well above what we can hear (which we also don't care about). In a way, it's fair to say they barely work; not in the sense that they are poorly manufactured or anything, but that it takes great cleverness to get something that works even as well as they do. There's a reason why they only came to be very recently; it isn't anywhere near as easy as sticking a microphone on the outside, inverting the signal, and playing the inverted signal on a headphone speaker, which could have been done decades ago. That, too, will produce some exciting acoustic effects, but will only cancel a very small and effectively random suite of frequencies, and you won't find it useful in general. Noise cancellation is just shy of impossible, and only works with some heavy caveats, like having the cancellation equipment extremely proximal to the audio receiver (ears in our case).

It seems odd that broadcasters wouldn't do this given its such an easy EQ hack.

  Host Broadcast Services, the company that provides the broadcast feed for the
  World Cup, said Tuesday it has doubled its audio filters to reduce the constant
  blaring buzz of vuvuzelas.

Ref: http://soccernet.espn.go.com/world-cup/story/_/id/5287552/ce...

I can see the future: TVs will come with a Safari Reader-like "Watchability" option that wipes out background images and noise and flattens out imperfections in faces and bodies.

Adblock for billboards within video streams would be amazing.

In many retransmissions, the billboards are digitally replaced with local ads.

Might not necessarily be miles away either. There already exists software that watches live video and can count appearances of your brand, size, length of time and so on to deliver a report on the potential impact your advertising has had.

Sounds a lot like an "off" switch. :)

It's not entirely clear that the audience want broadcasters to do this: while I certainly find it annoying, there are those who think it is part of the atmosphere of the game.

It might be part of the atmosphere of these games as played in SA, but it's not generally part of the game elsewhere, and it drowns out the slightly more subtle aspects of crowd noise, not to mention reducing the ability of players on the pitch to communicate - harming the quality of the football.

I'm not really into sports but this would have been the first thing I'd have tried as a broadcast engineer (after boosting and sweeping to find the appropriate frequencies). So yeah, it seems odd to me as well.

Before going to the Brazil/North Korea match, the ESPN announcers said they adding extra audio filters to cut down the sound.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1286912/WORLD-CUP-20...

I know this is totally unrelated, but this is a sports thread, and you recently recommended _Inner Game of Tennis_ to me. I just wanted to let you know that I read it and loved it. http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1435488

As a south african having grown up with vuvzela's present at every sport match, the present worldwide 'outcry' is quite entertaining.

Don't you just love the smell of globalization in the morning?

You make it sound as though South Africa didn't lobby to host more than 30 other countries. It's a bit disingenuous to frame the guests as imposing. It also doesn't seem like that much of a stretch that some people aren't crazy about a constant monotonous drone.

So, I'm calling BS on this logic. There are genuine knocks on globalization. This is not one of them.

    'disingenuous to frame the guests as imposing'

this was not my intention. What IS imposing is the guests deciding what the south african hosted world cup's atmosphere/culture should be like. We've had many european-flavoured world cups, but now we have an african one - this is something you may not like or enjoy, but it is what it is.

    'There are genuine knocks on globalization. This is not one of them'

You might frame this case as inconsequential, but on the contrary this is a case of 'global cultural dissent'. Ask any southern african (where african is defined as having grown up on the continent) for his/her opinion and it'll unequivocally be in favour of the vuvuzela - for the rationale I cited (It's always been present / it's distinctly african etc.) I could flesh this argument out, but this would take us severely out of context.

To give context, I'm also of the opinion that the vuvuzela's should be filtered for live broadcast - having been to a game highlights the dramatic difference between their effects on-the-ground and recorded. What I find amusing is the attitude towards the instrument and its use live - especially from those who've never been to a game and witnessed it for themselves.

    'So, I'm calling BS on this logic'

which logic would you be referring to? The argument that this is a case of globalization?

"Every sport match": gross exaggeration. As for soccer, this is what an expert said about them in 2005: http://www.news24.com/Columnists/Archive/JonQwelane/Ban-the-... (the writer is black and was an anti-Apartheid columnist so playing the race/Euro-guilt card won't work). It seems like vuvuzelas are a relatively recent introduction to soccer matches, so if you grew up with them, you must be very young.

Incidentally the (black) man who invented the tin vuvuzela remains impoverished in a township while the (white) man who commercialised the idea is rolling in money. If you want a lesson in globalisation, that is the one to learn: http://www.mg.co.za/article/2010-01-08-vuvuzela-creator-blow...

    ' Every sport match': gross exaggeration'

I grew up in Cape Town, South Africa - and throughout my high school sporting career I've played Soccer, Hockey, Cricket and Water Polo (the occasional game of Rugby too) - and yes, at the High School level every match has it's cheerleaders with vuvuzela's.

The sports where they are not used (in South Africa) are Cricket and Tennis - both of which the crowds are not permitted/expected to use any instruments of any kind (this changes for some provincial cricket games)

    'so if you grew up with them, you must be very young.'

I'm 20 - and you're correct on this point. They are a recent addition - but that does nothing to change their prevalence at South African sport events.

As for your cited article, one case of a South African disliking them and arguing againt fails to hold weight against the fans who continue to blow them at every game.

    'Incidentally the (black) man who invented the tin vuvuzela...'

I'm aware of this, and yes - it is unfortunate. If anything, this is further evidence of the profound difference in ignorance & education between the 'two worlds' (living in the first world as they call it - i.e. a major city, and living in the rural/township areas)

I'm afraid you may be generalising again: the sort of high schools where hockey and water polo are played are certainly not representative of the vast majority of high schools in South Africa.

What's the point? I mean, why blow on one of those things all match long? I go to American football games and make a lot of noise, but only when the opposing offense is lined up to try to get them offside. Otherwise the stadium is silent. What is the point of constant noise during the entire game?

Questioning the purpose of things never seems to go well when the topic is sports -- the purpose of the whole thing is fun.

I guess I just wonder why laying on a one-note horn for 2 hours is fun.

I don't think anyone does, it's just the additive effect of 30,000 people blowing them at random intervals is a constant buzz (particularly on TV, when there's no direction to the audio).

I expect that this is akin to wondering why anyone would want to go to a concert and lay on their camera's flash for two hours to create that annoying "continuous strobe" effect. :)

Only one way to find out: try it yourself :-)

My theory: World Cup tickets are too expensive for most soccer fans in South Africa, so they are bought by more affluent types, who are not familiar with fan traditions (many don't even know much about soccer), and therefore just blow the vuvuzelas continuously and randomly during the match, because they think that it's the cool thing to do.

Clearly you've never been to a Sooners game at the University of Oklahoma.

No, but I was at the fourth-loudest game ever recorded:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oregon_Ducks_football#Venues_an...

> the team's main rival is the Oregon State Beavers.

Heh.

Atmosphere means different things to different people?

I really can't see how constant bzzzzz is atmosphere.

The atmosphere from the stands (cheering, singing, etc) gets completely drowned. :(

If you were actually in the stands it probably wouldn't sound the same since your point of reference would be totally different.

"The atmosphere I like and am used to is drowned out by the atmosphere you like and are used to."

Yes, it's an endless drone on TV and my wife doesn't love it, but it is unique to this World Cup and gives it its own flavour. Come visit me in Summer and our heat is dry and merciless all day. Visit the tropics and the night is filled with cicadas for hours on end. They're things which not everyone will love, but they help define these places.

The vuvuzelas are not forever, but they help define the 2010 WC.

You cannot hear it on TV, but the combination of cheering, taunting and vuvzela's is just magical (from the stands).

I'm quite pleased to have learned that a simple thing like a bunch of people with oversized kazoos can cause international outrage.

Globalization? Really? It's a fucking plastic horn, not a deeply-held cultural value.

My wife told me I was the most annoying person she'd ever known..I almost choked on my vuvuzela.

There's something rather poignant about this, both funny and sad.

The world could choose any "negative" aspect of the modern South African situation to complain about and to try to develop nifty hacks for suppressing; like crime, violence, poverty, the brain drain, etc etc.

But the one that's getting all the attention is that "annoying buzz on the world's TV sets."

Re the downvotes -- I guess this really just goes to show again that either (a) people really fundamentally care more about a 235Hz buzz on their TVs during soccer, than they do about real (by comparison) suffering as long as its someone else who's suffering; or (b) people would just far rather apply their brainpower to attenuating (or discussing the attenuation of) vuvuzelas, than to trying to solve actual issues that matter and would be of lasting value.

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