Go back to the
 previous page

 ADM - Adaptive Dual
 Microphone

 AEC - Acoustic
 Echo Cancelling

 AFR - Acoustic
 Feedback Reduction

 AVQ - Automatic
 Volume & eQualization
 Control

 AVQ-Me - AVQ for Music
 and Entertainment

 AWNR - Adaptive Wind
Noise Reduction

 DRC - Dynamic Range
 Compression

 EasyListen - speech
 slowing-down

 Mono to Stereo
 conversion

 MuRefiner

 NS - Noise Suppression

 PLC - Packet
 Loss Concealment

 ISM - Intelligent
 Speech Mixer

 Vocoders

 White papers

 Terminology index

You are here: Technologies -> AWNR

About Adaptive Wind Noise Reduction

When wind strikes the surface of a microphone, it causes an effect known as "wind noise". Wind noise is very similar to the noise you would produce if you were to rub your finger on the microphone's surface while recording. There are different passive ways to reduce wind noise in microphone signals. Windscreens made of open cell foams, fur or other materials are most widely used solutions for outdoor sound recordings. Although these solutions are effective, they have several significant disadvantages – the size and durability are the main ones.

Due to the limitations of “classical” approaches, microphones “embedded” into communication devices are generally exposed to the air without any isolating materials that can reduce the wind turbulences near the microphone membrane. A proper acoustic and mechanical design avoiding sharp edges in the microphone proximity lessens the amount of such turbulences, but does not eliminates them completely. Installation of woven fabric layers in the microphone porting assembly may dramatically reduce the impact of the turbulences on the microphone signal and should be used in all devices designed for outdoor usage.

Unfortunately designers of consumer electronics devices are often limited in their abilities to make a proper, windproof design due to marketing requirements, time, budget and other limitations. The results may be just terrible in windy conditions. There are currently many consumer and other products on the market with built in microphones (headsets, phones, video and still cameras) where even a slight wind blowing causes a hurricane effect on the microphone signal.

Adaptive Wind Noise Reduction (AWNR) technology developed by Alango provides “software only” solution to wind noise problem. Wind noise is automatically detected and significantly attenuated when present while clear speech in quite conditions is fully preserved. Wind noise character may differ for different devices and use conditions. AWNR fully exploits the advantages of Alango subband processing. Problematic frequency regions containing wind noise are automatically detected and wind noise is suppressed in contaminated frequency bands only. Clean signal parts remain unaffected.

Interactive audio examples

Use control buttons on the interactive screenshots to play/stop/navigate.

A dual microphone Bluetooth headset in presence of a strong wind. Listen for the signal recorded by the first microphone (unprocessed):

A dual microphone Bluetooth headset in presence of a strong wind. Listen for the output of Alango dual microphone technology (ADM) including Adaptive Wind Noise Reduction.

AWNR and other technologies

Although it can be used standalone, Adaptive Wind Noise Reduction technology is integrated into Adaptive Dual Microphone technology (ADM). It its turn, ADM is a part of Alango Voice Communication Package (VCP). The package also includes acoustic echo cancellation, stationary noise suppression, dynamic range compressor, speech enhancement and several others.

Please contact us for more information, audio examples and real time demo availabilities.

go back to the Technologies page.