Cleaning up distracting humming sound in a scene using Premiere CS4

[jthabel]

Hi all,

I've recently filmed a scene on location in a bar where there's a loud humming coming from a nearby freezer underneath a bartop. It's not terribly bad, and I've actually worked through it pretty well with my room tone back up track, but it still bugs me that it's there. I've been taking a few shots in the dark on the best tools to use in CS4 for removing the hum enough for it to not be too distracting. Found this great vid on YouTube that demonstarted how to use DeHummer and EQ to get riod of some of the noise and put it to use:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=opbMjW81xGk

I guess my big question is how to reduce the noise even further using the noise reduction or maybe the spectral noise reduction effect tools. What's the best way to apply these tools? Or is there another audio tool in premiere that anyone would recommend? Thanks!

 

[Noiz2]

iZotope Rx

 

[jthabel]

I guess I should add that I'm looking to use tools/fx that are already built in to Premiere -- no plugins. Well, unless they're free.

 

[ryanjf]

I guess I should add that I'm looking to use tools/fx that are already built in to Premiere -- no plugins. Well, unless they're free.

I'm not aware of any free noise reduction tools that are good enough to use so +1 for iZotope RX. That's probably the least expensive noise reduction tool with spectral repair that I know of. After your EQ'ing, what else is left?

 

[Rick R]

Without (or with) NR, you might try some a parametric or paragraphic EQ, narrow bandwidths, notching out frequencies centered at 60 & 120Hz. Not ideal, but would help attenuate the lower-end hum a little. Going to 240Hz and other harmonic bands beyond that, would likely alter on the voice frequencies unpleasantly.

 

[Noiz2]

Well, unless they're free.

So you kind of just set the price better sound is worth to you.

I'm assuming your not willing to pay a sound person either.

That may seem a bit harsh but lets flip it a bit. You tell me the best free camera I can get with good quality...

 

[j1clark@ucsd.edu]

So you kind of just set the price better sound is worth to you.

I'm assuming your not willing to pay a sound person either.

That may seem a bit harsh but lets flip it a bit. You tell me the best free camera I can get with good quality...

Not quite the same analogy. If one shoots the camera under 'ugly lights', there may be a 'fancy package' that will correct 'beyond one's wildest dreams'... or using existing correction in Premiere/After Effects eliminate say 90% of the problem... which probably eliminates the 'problem' for 90% of the viewers.

Several filters which are in the tool set the OP has, were mentioned. And at that point the OP needs to accept that for their existing set of software, that may be as good as it is going to get.

On the other other hand Davinci has released a 'lite' free version of their color grading software... is there a similar sort of thing for Noise Reduction in the audio world?

About the only 'free' thing I've gotten recently in the audio world is a 'free' demo copy of Pro Tools with the m-audio Fastrack Pro I bought last year... and the 'demo' version is for such an old version of Mac OS, it is unuseable by me... I of course only found that out after loading up a bunch of 'key' protection software crap to then be able to run the software... and of course no updates for more modern versions of the OS are available on the website.

 

[Noiz2]

Um what does bad lighting have to do with a free "good" camera?

And no you can't make badly lit footage better anymore than you can make badly recorded audio better. ie You can sometimes do amazing things but not often. With bad lighting you will get the same (though visual) noise and artifacts you will with a lot of noise reduction/ gaining etc. It's really very close.

But he was asking about free tools. My point was he didn't shoot on "free stuff" nor did he edit on free stuff, but when he needed to fix the sound free stuff was the only option he would consider.

There are free plugins. In fact you can use any of the excellent Massey plugins for free, you just can't save presets.

And there are a ton of VST plugins that are free. Where did you buy this box? No currently shipping products ship with software that is more than one generation back. Apple HATES Digi, well actually AVID, so there is always a lag time for compatibility with the latest Mac OS because un like all the other developers Avid gets no advance copies of the OS so until they can buy it at the store they can't start working on fixes.

That is Apple's fault not Avid's.

But I suspect you got some remaindered product since as far as I know ProTools hasn't had a "free" version since PT4.3 circa 1997. Anything current is shipped with current software and usually with an upgrade window.

A correction. After a little research yes the version that ships with a demo (not really free since it is a demo not a working version) does seem to way out of date. Not sure what that is about? PT is on version 10 and supposedly the demo is for version 7.4 which even looks different from the current one. But it's a demo not a free version of PT. That may be the only "demo" they ever made, I certainly haven't seen any demo versions.

So bad on them for including it but you couldn't have done anything with it anyway, it's a DEMO.

 

[j1clark@ucsd.edu]

Um what does bad lighting have to do with a free "good" camera?

And no you can't make badly lit footage better anymore than you can make badly recorded audio better. ie You can sometimes do amazing things but not often. With bad lighting you will get the same (though visual) noise and artifacts you will with a lot of noise reduction/ gaining etc. It's really very close.

But he was asking about free tools. My point was he didn't shoot on "free stuff" nor did he edit on free stuff, but when he needed to fix the sound free stuff was the only option he would consider.

His post was this:

I guess I should add that I'm looking to use tools/fx that are already built in to Premiere -- no plugins. Well, unless they're free.

In the first sentence he's asking about what tools/fx 'builtin' to Premiere... the second sentence does put a qualifier on any suggestions that is that they be 'free'...

So I'm going to presume the fellow has purchased Premiere at some cost, and doesn't have money for any additional tools beyond Premiere, unless they are 'free'...

To me at this point it doesn't matter if the poster has spent 1 or 10K dollars on 'quality' equipment, they would like not to spend more.

Premiere has some Audio filters, some types that have been mentioned to roll off unwanted sound in the region that 'hum' may typically exist. If the poster wants 'more' than that... well, yes, there may not be much in the way of 'free'... and 'good' tools.

This to me is more akin to someone shooting under lights which may have an objectionable spectral profile. While one can say that one should always show up with a 1 ton grip truck, again, at some amount of expenditures, there still may be some need to correct, and unless the video 'filters' in Premiere can do the job, there's not much in the way of correction beyond that...

Well... except Davinci for one well known in the industry product provider, did release a 'lite', that is 'limited' version of their well known color grading software. So, if that can do for someone who happened to have/oops/howeverItHappened, shoot under 'bad lights', sort of an analogy to recording audio with environmental 'hum', there may be more someone can do to correct that 'for free'.

As for the 'Avid' thing... I've tuned out of the Mac OS development environment for about 9 or so years. But as far as I know, there was never a hold on Avid buying the developer's package, sending software engineers to the various 'pre-release' of software meetings, as I use to attend at the time. The biggest thing that Apple never did of course was give 'previews' in to their hardware, and Avid wanted to 'bundle' their solution very tight to systems that they put together. That in the 'olden' days was probably one way to insure that the system worked... but that hardware preview option was never extended very far beyond the Apple Campus... of course there may have been 'select' vendors who go hardware before release, perhaps under Scully... but definitely I was never given much in the way of 'new to come' hardware until the official announcements.

 

[Noiz2]

No Apple does not allow Avid that option. They consider them an adversary and don't let them in on the pre release versions of the OS that normal developers get.

I have heard this from folks who should know on both sides of the issue so I'm fairly certain it's true. And it explains the lag time with ProTools being certified on new Mac OS's. This didn't used to be the case before AVID bought Digi so... Other than bus architecture changes ProTools shouldn't care about hardware. Avid (the video editing software) may have more of a concern there.

Your right it doesn't mater what he spent on other things. My point quite simply is that he is not willing to spend any on post. Whether it's because he just blew it on other things not realizing that sound might need some work also or he just doesn't care much, or because he never thought about sound till now. It all boils down to the same thing. He isn't willing to spend any money on making his sound better so that tells you a lot about where it sits in his realm of "important things".

He didn't say "I don't have much is there any thing that might get me by" he wanted a fix and was not willing to spend anything. He didn't even really ask for help just a pointer to a free and quick solution.

So he is left with the built in tools that are what they are. There is a reason professionals are not doing sound post in PP, FCP, etc.

It was one of those "magic button" questions. And OK I probably got more snippy that I could have.


Anyway. THere are some serious limitations to the DaVinci free version for doing color correction. For most people a better free option is Colorista by RED GIANT. When they released Colorista II they made the first one free.

The ear is more sensitive to issues (kind of ironic since humans are so vision centric) and I don't know of any noise reduction plugins that are free (or even really cheap) that are worth looking at. There MIGHT be something on Windows?? There are hardware boxes that are selling for dirt that are pretty good. But that's hardware.

And the big thing not mentioned so far is that if you don't know what you are doing you can do a lot more damage than good with noise reduction.

 

[j1clark@ucsd.edu]

No Apple does not allow Avid that option. They consider them an adversary and don't let them in on the pre release versions of the OS that normal developers get.

I have heard this from folks who should know on both sides of the issue so I'm fairly certain it's true. And it explains the lag time with ProTools being certified on new Mac OS's. This didn't used to be the case before AVID bought Digi so... Other than bus architecture changes ProTools shouldn't care about hardware. Avid (the video editing software) may have more of a concern there.

They could have hired me... back when... but I digress...

So he is left with the built in tools that are what they are. There is a reason professionals are not doing sound post in PP, FCP, etc.

I did have a conversation with someone today who is setting up an 'editing bay'. He has a venue that has a small stage for either film or live performance, a few 'conference rooms', a studio for musicians, and I mentioned that while many 'filmmakers' have sufficient video tools, one of the big things that seems to be missing is a good sound bay. I told him to find someone who is 'in to sound' for details, but that seems to be a very missing piece for most film makers.

It wouldn't be 'free'... but then there is no free lunch... 'free' tools usually require a lot of 'work' to setup on even the ever popular 'linux' box...

For example, the "free" Ardour, a free 'daw' program, requires a 'free" Jack program to route audio around the Mac... and if one wants to do 'film' sound processing and have a video image sync'd to the sound for reference, one has to get "free" Blender in some sort of 'sync' mode with the "free" Jack and "free" Ardour...

Hey, but one piece at a time... didn't cost me a dime...