Soundtrack - Audio from a Consumer Handicam with on-board Mic

A

armadillo

Well-known member
I have been put to the unenviable task of restoring the audio from some footage that is:

- a two person interview (2 cameras, one on each)
- they are Consumer (not prosumer) handicams, relying on the on-board mic

As a result, the audio is pretty god-awful, but the footage is quite good and worth the effort of restoring.

I have run Soundtrack noise reduction, setting the threshold quite low, and as a result I have taken away a great deal of the (abundant) noise. However, I am left with tinny and metallic voices and even the small amount of remaining noise sounds tinny and somewhat unnatural (though it is a marked improvement).

I was wondering if anyone had any suggestions for additional steps I could take to make the best of the situation.

Thanks as always...
 
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Not much you can do unless you're prepared to spend a lot of money taking the footage to a ProTools session with a CEDAR noise reduction pass- which is far more powerful than the noise reduce of STP. That or do what the pros do- replace the dialogue completely with looping. The best way to get good audio in post is record good audio in production...

Noah
 
Cool, yeah I know I'll never get this audio to be pristine. And it's impossible / prohibitive to have it refilmed or do ADR... So, just seeing if there were any other little tricks to either reduce the noise further or perhaps camouflage it, etc...

Thanks for the insight.
 
Some aggressive EQ'ing can make it a little better. Try boosting the low end some and supress the midranges.
 
When I change to the spectrum view of my audio, i can see what appears to be a few distinguishable lines that run consistently through the track as unwanted hiss / noise. Example, there is one at almost exactly 11k, one around 4200 and 5500, etc...

The noise reduction tool is apparently a broadsword...

Does Soundtrack allow me to say, go in and mute / reduce everything in small windows around these separate frequencies?

I may not be able to beat the noise print tool, but I'm willing to try...
 
First the best thing you can do is go to a sound person, they have better tools and better experience, it will sound better than you can do in STP on your own.
But if your determined to try on your own here's some advice.
Use light passes of any noise reduction, heavy passes will give you all kinds of artifacts.
Almost all noise reduction apps/ plugins are for broad band noise. Often they will have other modules for other kinds of noise. You want to get rid of the hums and buzzes first, because they will throw off the broadband NR pass. Make sure when taking the noise sample that your just getting steady noise and not any transient events, like pops or squeaks.
After every pass A/B with the original and ask your self "Is it better or just different?".

The cheapest NR app that might help is around $300, the next step up is over a thousand and then you hit the CEDAR systems at a few grand to many grand.

The $300 is RX by iZotope
http://www.izotope.com/products/audio/rx/

But you might well get a sound person to clean this up for that amount and RX would just be one of the tools they would use.
 
armadillo said:
When I change to the spectrum view of my audio, i can see what appears to be a few distinguishable lines that run consistently through the track as unwanted hiss / noise. Example, there is one at almost exactly 11k, one around 4200 and 5500, etc...

The noise reduction tool is apparently a broadsword...

Does Soundtrack allow me to say, go in and mute / reduce everything in small windows around these separate frequencies?

I may not be able to beat the noise print tool, but I'm willing to try...
Click to expand...

What your looking for is a harmonic filter, and no. I only know of one that doesn't cost a fortune and it is around $250- $300.
 
Cool, thanks for the continuing advice. Much appreciated.

I definitely want to see how far I can get with this on my own. I am not a sound guy, but this has already been a learning experience and I am picking up a fair bit pretty quickly by working on this footage with absolutely terrible audio...

Every bit of advice is pointing me further in the right direction and will undoubtedly allow me to make life easier for sound people I work with in the future...
 
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