Buzzy audio?

A

analog_addict

Well-known member
Hi all,

Editing a little documentary I have shot for a charity and one or two interviews have some weird 'buzzy' audio.I'm not sure what causes this as the levels are no where near bottoming out. This was recorded with a Rode NTG2 and a Zoom H4N.

Example clip can be downloaded here: http://www.2shared.com/file/Up6QaG9_/Buzz.html

Does anyone know what causes this and how it might be fixed?

Thanks!
 
I do not hear any digital level clipping, slightly over-driven preamp maybe, or just a cheapo preamp and/or microphone. Could be her voice is just inherently a little raspy, or some kind of throat ailment..
You could try a 'Smooth' process or tape/tube simulator plug-in may help, none are without trade-offs though.
 
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My vote is her voice, probably accentuated by a bright mic.

You could roll it off a bit, that might help but??? Maybe try a deesser, if tuned just right might help??

Not much else you can do since it's not clipping as far as I can tell it will be very hard to isolate the "problem" from the "voice".
 
It's not her voice. It sounds like a bit of mic overload. You notice how her voice "stabilizes" on the quieter areas? And, I don't think this is repairable.
 
It's a physical overloading of the mic capsule. The volume was a bit more than it could handle. This is usually a placement issue. You could turn everything down on your gear, and still overload the mic and get that buzz.
 
I don't think it could be the mic OL in normal conversational/interview SPLs. (unless a really cheap mic maybe)
I was working on a docu about a famous photographer who was elderly at the time of the shoot, (RIP now) and his voice intermittently got raspy when talking low, and I know the levels and everything were good since I recorded it with good gear. (KM-84 > 744 recorder) In post, I painstakingly minimized it as much as possible (w/o losing my remaining sanity) using Sound Forge Pro surgically on the dialog files, sometimes using the smooth process, a tape simulator, click/crackle removal (used to extreme) and sometimes just drawing it out or replacing the raspy peaks/valleys, which were quite easy to see with the waveform enlarged. I'll look for an example and post it ASAP.
 
Doc Bernard said:
It's not her voice. It sounds like a bit of mic overload. You notice how her voice "stabilizes" on the quieter areas? And, I don't think this is repairable.
Click to expand...

Could be, but it seems to be on the same kind of sounds and it doesn't seem to be too loud. Some capsules really accentuate some frequencies so... it could be that overloading the mic. I'm still leaning to her voice though.

Macks nichs since in either case this is the kind of thing that is close to impossible to fix.
 
Rick R said:
...
using Sound Forge Pro surgically on the dialog files, sometimes using the smooth process, a tape simulator, click/crackle removal (used to extreme) and sometimes just drawing it out or replacing the raspy peaks/valleys, which were quite easy to see with the waveform enlarged...
Click to expand...

I think that is in the next to impossible category. You just threw enough time and energy and experience at it to make the next to impossible possible. That is a LOT of time and many projects don't have the time/ money to spend.
 
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