Email (part 1)

Yesterday I received an email from a client (I work for a recording studio) that read:

Do you have any advice on cleaning up the audio in the attached MP3? Or is it beyond repair? Just wondering if there is a filter etc...
Thanks,

I listened to it, and it was the worst audio I've heard a client send us. A whisper level interview, completely inaudible speaking, smothered in very loud background talking. Clearly the interview was done in the middle of a very large, and very vocal crowd. Could have been in the middle of Times Square on New Years Eve judging by the party activity going on. Really there was no salvaging this interview. So I responded:

I don't think there's anything we can do to salvage that audio. The voice you need, just isn't there, and with the background noise floor being human voices at virtually the same frequency but even louder than the conversation you're looking to save, there's nothing we could possibly do with it. I'm sorry.

We typically don't say no to anything our clients ask of us. But there really was no salvaging this. Clearly whoever did the interview screwed up, and not even audio CSI could piece this one together. I figured it was best to be upfront and honest so as not to betray our reputation as audio professionals who know their field. I thought the request would stop there. Then I got this oddly desperate plea in response to my email, from a different party than the original email source:

I'm the (important position withheld) trying to get this MP3 cleaned up. It would be extremely helpful if you could clean this up. This is an interview with the CEO of my client! it holds valuable information that we must have for a project that we are currently working on. Please let me know if anything can be done to salvage the recording, and how much it's going to cost!

So, assuming the audio in this file must be dictating the cure for AIDS or the plans for the next Death Star, I gave the file to our head engineer to see if we might be able to save any of it.
Needless to say, most of the interview is still lost even after some finesse, but certain parts and phrases barely came through during the course of the 5 mintue interview. Overall it's still garbage, but one of the few phrases that we were able to discern came from the voice of the interviewer...and it explained the desperate email I received pleading with us to try and save the blunder:

Transcription:
CEO: Are you going to be able to hear *****INAUDIBLE*******

Interviewer: ****INAUDIBLE**** don't worry, I just bought a special digital recorder that lets me delete all the background noise.

CEO: Um....



I swear, that was basically the only audio we were able to save.