4 ms·

I had been wondering when a product like this would come along. Being able to remove background noise from calls sounds pretty great, but it's not a problem I r

by vosper 8y ago

I had been wondering when a product like this would come along. Being able to remove background noise from calls sounds pretty great, but it's not a problem I run into too often - most people on my calls are in a meeting room or a quiet place. But, if it can really fill in missing or distorted chunks then for me that's a killer feature. I'm going to give it a try on my morning check-in call, which is coming up. I'd love to see a product like this be able to adapt to the voices of individual speakers, and fill in gaps or distortion in their natural voices. I presume that would be more difficult, though, because you'd need a model of each speaker at the output device, so both parties would need to be running Krisp, and you'd somehow have to share the model between them - which if you already have network issues causing dropouts and distoration might not be feasible. Unless it was a side-channel thing, where for regular calls with the same people the voice model for is updated after each call, ready for the next one. Though I'm not sure I love the idea of a model of my voice being constructed and transmitted around. But I think it would be really cool :)

blparker 8y ago
Make sure you check back in with the results!
- vosper 8y ago
  As requested: This call typically has decent audio quality, and as it's a stand-up / status call people tend to speak one at a time. No-one today had much in the way of background noise, so I'm not sure there was a lot of opportunity for the app to show off. That said, I switched the Krisp speaker mode on and off repeatedly while each person who was talking. 1. When just one person was talking Krisp didn't seem to ever make the sound worse, which I guess is a start. 2. When there was a conversation going back and forth, or when one person started talking right after someone else finished, the voices got mangled or muted and I couldn't understand them. I had to turn Krisp off. 3. When there was some background echo (like in a large room) or some minor distortion I thought it maybe sounded a bit clearer with Krisp running, but it didn't really make much difference. I could understand the speaker either way. With the audio problems I mentioned at (2) and no real gain from using Krisp I doubt I would use it regularly, though if I run into a call with bad background noise I might try it again. I also tried the Krisp microphone, and at one point I had to repeat myself, which doesn't usually happen. But I have no way of knowing whether that was due to me speaking unclearly, or audio issues at the listeners end, or something else. So I don't really have an opinion about the microphone, but as I am in a quiet place anyway I wouldn't probably use it. It would be nice if there was a single channel evaluation mode for the speaker. If I could hear in my right ear the normal audio was, and in the left what the Krisp-processed sound, then I would have a better chance of evaluating the performance. I guess if you have a lot of continuous background noise that mode would be redundant, and it should be an obvious improvement switching back and forth.
  - davitb 8y ago
    Such feedback from users is priceless. Thanks for it. Krisp is still in beta and we keep experimenting with different DNN models. For example we have a DNN model which maximally preserves multiple voices while removing noise. It's not shipped yet. Re #2, one thing we noticed is that Conferencing apps themselves will distort the voice when multiple voices are overlapping. Especially when there is also noise. There is not much Krisp can do here since the stream it receives is already distorted. Unfortunately for krisp speaker we don't control the audio stream. Imagine how many times the stream gets signal processed before krisp speaker gets it (noise cancellation in the headset, noise cancellation in RTC, codec, etc). Re Krisp microphone, the DNN model used here is more effective since what Krisp receives is "less processed/distorted stream". Please stay tuned, our release cycle is around 2 weeks. More quality and UX features are under way.
    - FireBeyond 8y ago
      "Windows support is coming soon. Please leave your email." And nowhere to "leave my email".
      - davitb 8y ago
        Intercom button on the right.
  - josh_carterPDX 8y ago
    >When there was a conversation going back and forth, or when one person started talking right after someone else finished, the voices got mangled or muted and I couldn't understand them. I had to turn Krisp off.< This may have nothing to do with Krisp as an app. All phones/communications device have the ability for either half or full duplex audio. Half duplex means only one caller can be heard. If someone were to speak, the audio would cut out as you experienced. Full duplex allows for conversations to happen all at once. So this all could just be a symptom of the feature of the device or service you're using. I would try your test on different devices and/or services.
headShrinker 8y ago
> most people on my calls are in a meeting room or a quiet place Since I moved to NYC, I think I haven't had one phone call without some obnoxiously loud siren/horn/baby/dog/jack hammer/piano/bros in the background. People must think I listen to the NYC soundtrack on repeat at full volume and make phone calls. I envy you. :)

by vosper 8y ago

blparker 8y ago

Make sure you check back in with the results!

vosper 8y ago
As requested: This call typically has decent audio quality, and as it's a stand-up / status call people tend to speak one at a time. No-one today had much in the way of background noise, so I'm not sure there was a lot of opportunity for the app to show off. That said, I switched the Krisp speaker mode on and off repeatedly while each person who was talking. 1. When just one person was talking Krisp didn't seem to ever make the sound worse, which I guess is a start. 2. When there was a conversation going back and forth, or when one person started talking right after someone else finished, the voices got mangled or muted and I couldn't understand them. I had to turn Krisp off. 3. When there was some background echo (like in a large room) or some minor distortion I thought it maybe sounded a bit clearer with Krisp running, but it didn't really make much difference. I could understand the speaker either way. With the audio problems I mentioned at (2) and no real gain from using Krisp I doubt I would use it regularly, though if I run into a call with bad background noise I might try it again. I also tried the Krisp microphone, and at one point I had to repeat myself, which doesn't usually happen. But I have no way of knowing whether that was due to me speaking unclearly, or audio issues at the listeners end, or something else. So I don't really have an opinion about the microphone, but as I am in a quiet place anyway I wouldn't probably use it. It would be nice if there was a single channel evaluation mode for the speaker. If I could hear in my right ear the normal audio was, and in the left what the Krisp-processed sound, then I would have a better chance of evaluating the performance. I guess if you have a lot of continuous background noise that mode would be redundant, and it should be an obvious improvement switching back and forth.
- davitb 8y ago
  Such feedback from users is priceless. Thanks for it. Krisp is still in beta and we keep experimenting with different DNN models. For example we have a DNN model which maximally preserves multiple voices while removing noise. It's not shipped yet. Re #2, one thing we noticed is that Conferencing apps themselves will distort the voice when multiple voices are overlapping. Especially when there is also noise. There is not much Krisp can do here since the stream it receives is already distorted. Unfortunately for krisp speaker we don't control the audio stream. Imagine how many times the stream gets signal processed before krisp speaker gets it (noise cancellation in the headset, noise cancellation in RTC, codec, etc). Re Krisp microphone, the DNN model used here is more effective since what Krisp receives is "less processed/distorted stream". Please stay tuned, our release cycle is around 2 weeks. More quality and UX features are under way.
  - FireBeyond 8y ago
    "Windows support is coming soon. Please leave your email." And nowhere to "leave my email".
    - davitb 8y ago
      Intercom button on the right.
- josh_carterPDX 8y ago
  >When there was a conversation going back and forth, or when one person started talking right after someone else finished, the voices got mangled or muted and I couldn't understand them. I had to turn Krisp off.< This may have nothing to do with Krisp as an app. All phones/communications device have the ability for either half or full duplex audio. Half duplex means only one caller can be heard. If someone were to speak, the audio would cut out as you experienced. Full duplex allows for conversations to happen all at once. So this all could just be a symptom of the feature of the device or service you're using. I would try your test on different devices and/or services.

headShrinker 8y ago

> most people on my calls are in a meeting room or a quiet place Since I moved to NYC, I think I haven't had one phone call without some obnoxiously loud siren/horn/baby/dog/jack hammer/piano/bros in the background. People must think I listen to the NYC soundtrack on repeat at full volume and make phone calls. I envy you. :)