Critique on Audio Needed for recently posted 'factory tour' video

I

IanB

Active member
All,
After finishing this video, and using Sony Sound Forge to get a better level and quality of audio (mostly just the tools of 'wave hammer' to get a better sound level) I found I really need some help.



The first scene and last scene (me in the kitchen on a stool interview style) is a AKG 300 series with the Hypercardoid Capsule mounted about 5 feet away going into an H4n at 96k by 24 bit.

The second few scene's that I don't need much critique on (because equipment failed) is the large red roaster and everything until I get to the 'stone ground' stuff. These scenes had to be on-board on-camara mic, as my wireless (AT 1800 series single channel) ran out of distance.

When I am in the stone grinding room, and the tumbling chocolate room, there is tons of background noise, and I was using a lav with the low-pass filter turned on through the AT 1800 series wireless. Again with the H4n at 96k and 24bit. Again the same processing was applied (wave hammer in sound forge 10).

You can download the original video to get the 'full quality' or just use the sound on vimeo. What could i have done better? Was my problem mostly mic placement (should I have used the hyper hand-held instead of the lav on my ches)? sound post processing?

How the 'F' do I get the sound like I hear on CSI and other TV shows (when camera is at a distance and I don't see any lavs on the set) most of what I do is the walk-n-talk with me holding the steadicam and the secondary talent walking with me through their restaurant/factory.

In post processing I feel like even when I put in a noise gate and set the attack time to quite a distance, things didn't feel natural enough, they sounded as if people were talking in silence, and that ruined the atmosphere of the audio and space.

I feel like I know enough to be dangerous, but not enough to use my equipment to it's best advantage. What should I be doing differently in these scene's? What should I do differently with post processing. (original audio files are available to those who might want them)

Equipment:
H4n
AT 1800 Series Single Channel Wireless (receiver plugged into H4n, Lav listed below plugged into transmitter)
AT803b Lav
AKG Hypercardoid Blue Line 300 series (ran with a XLR cable directly to H4n)
Rode Dead Cat for AKG mic
 
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IanB said:
How the 'F' do I get the sound like I hear on CSI and other TV shows (when camera is at a distance and I don't see any lavs on the set) most of what I do is the walk-n-talk with me holding the steadicam and the secondary talent walking with me through their restaurant/factory.
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Wow... where to begin?

The quick answer is to get a sound man. It's obvious that you are not wearing headphones, so you aren't monitoring your audio as it records. That means you're leaving sound up to chance, which as you have now learned can hose you in the edit bay.

I'd also suggest a camera op, because the walk-and-talks with you shooting without watching make it obvious that you are just holding the camera in the general direction needed. You're shooting yourself with the camera, and by doing so, shooting yourself in the foot. You may have been working with a hand-held camera stabilizer, but it was still very shaky and the shots were all over the place.

Also, to address your quote above, you'll never see lavs. They're typically buried in the wardrobe so that they're out of sight. But they are there, I promise. That said, CSI shouldn't be your standard of reference for pieces like this. What you're shooting is news-magazine or lifestyle programming. Think Food Network.

And what do you mean by your wireless system "running out of distance"? Where were the receiver and recorder located? And if they weren't in a pack on your shoulder/belt/waist... why weren't they?

Now to the specifics, and not all of this is audio:

- Your opening shot. Why on earth was the mic 5' away on a locked medium shot?! You had plenty of headroom in that shot to get the mic within 12" and not be in the shot. You're on the right track by using a hypercardioid indoors like that (I'd find a less reflective room, however), but the rule is "the closer, the better" for any mic when it comes to dialog. Your effective working distance is within 12"-18", depending on the room and the environment.
- For host/interview walk-and-talks, there are two ideal solutions: either a boom op covering both, or both wearing lavs with wireless transmitters. The latter, of course, requires a second complete transmitter/receiver system.
- If you are the only one working this shoot, don't try to be the host as well. That was a huge downfall for this piece. Shoot the interview first, even if it's walking as well, then go back and shoot b-roll. That also allows you to interview but not worry about recording your own voice, which means that the interviewee's voice narrates the tour.
- Shoot b-roll. The jump cuts in the tour segment were just plain annoying, and you cut away at 1:40 for an awkward shot of the bags of cocoa beans. At that cutaway, all the background sound disappeared only to suddenly cut back in when you went back to the interview. Shots like that should be edited in over the interview.
- The on-camera mic is killing the sound, especially since you're using the actual built-in stereo mic array. This leaves you and the interviewee in an awkward stereo mix, where his voice is coming from the right and yours from the left. All dialog should be centered, but you'll have a hell of a time doing that with this sound because you'll find phasing issues if you try to make a mono mix out of the stereo dialog. Plus, at about 2:05 when he walks away from you toward one of the machines, his voice fades out since he's turned away from the mic and is too far from it to do any good. A wireless lav will fix that.
- Shoot b-roll. Yeah, this is the third time I've said that, but it's important. The whole thing was too ADD, with the interviewee walking back and forth across the room and the camera trying to follow him and get close-ups of the process all in the same shots (see 2:00-2:40). Focus on him first, then go back and get the close-ups and cutaways. Not only does this give you something to cover edits in the interview, it also helps give places where sound layers and transitions can be smoothed out in the mix.
- You have only one wireless system with a lav. Why in the world were you wearing it?! This is not about you. The critical audio comes from the interviewee. If your goal is to feature a local small-business proprietor, that person is not the secondary talent as long as the interview/tour is going on.
- Get a seated interview first. Walk-and-talks can be good, but they're less reliable as a sole source of your interview. Find a quiet, more controlled area and talk about the company's history and goals and what makes them unique. Then take the walking tour, and shoot (take a wild guess...) b-roll.

I highly recommend that you get the "Sound for Film and Television" DVD that's available from DVXUser. It's a great starting point for some one in your position.

EDIT: No amount of post-processing will compensate for poorly-recorded dialog. Your first goal is to get your production sound as clean and clear as possible. There's an old adage that you can polish a turd all day long, but at the end of the day it is still a turd. If you record properly the first time, you'll need much less work in post (potentially a little compression and EQ along with the level mixing).
 
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Woah...ok....this has a lot of information in it. (I won't comment on the additional 'crew' mentioned because it isn't an option for such a small winery like mine)

1. I need to do B-Roll better and with a LOT more planning (not really an audio centered comment, but still a good comment)

2. Why did I place the mic on me? I have no idea now that you bring this up......next time, it will be on the 'tour' person, not me.

3. Booming the Mic in to the interview scene's will be important so I need to pick up a proper mic-stand/setup for that (I don't know why I didn't remember/know about the working range of 12"-18")

4. Bring the wireless with you into the scene's ....don't leave it back thinking it can cover 400 linear feet of machinery floor. (I didn't know where I was going, so why did I make the receiver static??)

5. B-roll audio, not sure what to do to create a more natural sound segway that you mention above? Natural/ambient sound instead of the sound from the B-Roll shot? Mix the two sounds so they fade/mesh properly?

6. "Get a seated interview first. Find a quiet, more controlled area and talk about the company's history and goals and what makes them unique." (and being small and unique is what I wanted to capture in this piece so I should have done this)

Thanks for the tips. Next time I will be more prepared with my existing equipment, and setup my shoot in a way that better communicates the 'small company and unique products' better.

All other comments are still welcome and encouraged though,
Ian
 
IanB said:
(I won't comment on the additional 'crew' mentioned because it isn't an option for such a small winery like mine)
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Like I said... that's the quick answer. I understand that it may not be an option, but it is the ideal, "in-a-perfect-world" solution. That's why I mentioned it. Everything else had to do with executing this as a one-man-band.

IanB said:
4. Bring the wireless with you into the scene's ....don't leave it back thinking it can cover 400 linear feet of machinery floor. (I didn't know where I was going, so why did I make the receiver static??)
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If it isn't with you, you cannot listen to it. Then you have no idea if there's a problem. The best time to fix an issue is when it pops up, not after the shoot is done.

Also, 400' is a challenge even in ideal situations for most any wireless system. Add tons of heavy chunks of metal, no only in the walls and ceiling but in the machinery, and you're in an RF nightmare for distance. Minimize the distance, and keep the transmission path to line-of-sight. Also, be aware that a transmitter and receiver can be too close together. So if they're right next to each other and you start hearing signal problems, try putting at least 3', or even 6' between them.

IanB said:
5. B-roll audio, not sure what to do to create a more natural sound segway that you mention above? Natural/ambient sound instead of the sound from the B-Roll shot? Mix the two sounds so they fade/mesh properly?
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You have several options for getting good ambient sound. One, you might invest in a shotgun mic for on-camera. On-camera is really the least ideal place for a mic, but it can come in handy for b-roll and the hypercardioid is going to pick up too much from the camera and from you operating the camera. Also, you have an H4n. Use the hyper on a pole to record directly into the H4n, or even use the built-in stereo mics on the H4n, to record sounds of the machinery that you can edit in with the footage later. This won't work for things where you see people working and making erratic and unpredictable noises; those need to be recorded with video and audio at the same time. Constant sounds like the hum of the grinding machine can certainly be recorded separately from the video with no problems.

What I meant by smoother editing transitions is that you don't want all your ambient sounds cutting in and out as you move from A-roll to B-roll and back again, even if you need to cut a chunk out of the dialog track. Having a good ambient sound bed (room tone) allows you to keep that sound underneath to smooth out the edit. Often, fades should follow fades (audio follows video) as you edit. And some times, you can use the ambient track to make a seamless transition from one place to another using audio cross-fades.

Be careful with stereo nat tracks, though. If you have a walk-and-talk in front of a machine, the machine sound will be mono. Cutting to a stereo recording with a video cutaway, and then back to the mono dialog track can be disorienting. Most of your room tones really should be recorded and/or mixed in mono to follow dialog.
 
Woah...ok....this has a lot of information in it. (I won't comment on the additional 'crew' mentioned because it isn't an option for such a small winery like mine)
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Sorry but that is a BS excuse. Your doing what should be a pretty light weight walk and talk, and you have two companies with products that people like. You could have gotten a film student or better for a bottle of wine and a bar of chocolate. You don't have any friends? No employees? You need at least one other body and a promotion that doesn't come off well isn't really a promotion, so? This is advertising and you MUST have some advertising / promotion budget. But bottom line is you have very nice barter and you just didn't use it.
Don't mean to be aggressive here but you want someone to tell you how to make it sound like a show with a crew and post and well thought out shots with out doing any of that. Don't you think that if the big boys could save all that money they would? And saying that there is nobody in your world you could get help from is just BS, because the truth is you either didn't ask or didn't ask in the right way. And that is an important lesson to learn. Treat shoots like your business and you will end up a lot happier with the result. Doesn't mean spend a lot of $$$ it means pull in those favors, because it IS part of your business.

5. B-roll audio, not sure what to do to create a more natural sound segway that you mention above? Natural/ambient sound instead of the sound from the B-Roll shot? Mix the two sounds so they fade/mesh properly?
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I would definitely pick up more filler sound just to cover parts where there isn't talking and or to sweeten parts where we see a machine close up. It will also allow you to use some of the sitdown interview over floor coverage, since we do want to hear the machines etc when we see them.

I would also not be shooting at 96kHz. It's a waste for dialog and as is clearly shown here has an insignificant affect VS getting the mic where it needs to be. Kind of like real-estate "Location, location, location"
 
Oh and I know it's not audio, but...

Some of the shots were VERY dark. Depending on the camera there may not be a solution other than adding lights, but it's something to keep in mind. It's very frustrating to the viewer. And the shakycam is a bit over the top. If you have no better way to shoot then you might want to look at trying some image stabilization in post.

And acting? notes. You need to look up into the lens. If your reading the script then maybe stick it over the lens or even to the side rather than under. When people look below our eyes when they are telling us stuff it's usually because they are lying or embarrassed about what they are saying. Not that you are but humans instinctively react to that and it undermines what you are saying.
 
Holy Cow

Holy Cow

Ok, so things can get better (and they will) that is why I am asking on the forum. Imagine if I wasn't asking, and I just thought this was the greatest production since sliced bread on film.

As for crew, yes I could leverage people with wine and chocolate, however, they are unreliable, drop things, F&*K up your gear, hit buttons they aren't supposed too, and generally add more headache than it is worth. I need to shoot things 'on-site' at the time that works for me. There isn't any option to shoot with a crew, they won't be on-site when I am there (usually 30 minutes on my lunch break from my normal 9-5 job). I have a 16 month year old toddler, a day job, and I am the janitor, winemaker, and owner of a start-up winery.

I don't own a winery that makes any money yet, just barely scrapping by, however with all that all being said.

The image of my company is EXTREMELY important to me. I need to consider the image that is being put out there of of my company with this quality of a video, and if we should even 'do' this type of shoot. I think there may be a better way to communicate my company (interview style with B-Roll) than this run-n-gun shoot that we are doing now. I had not thought about this enough until you just brought it up. Considering the video quality should match the wine quality, I hadn't ever really given that enough thought. I thought 'well we have it, so why not use it' and I think I can, but I need to do so with an approach that will work for the time available, not the run-n-gun stuff I have been doing. Sticks may be my friend with b-roll on the Steadicam and audio boomed and locked off for an interview.

Also, I don't want to shoot like the big boys with their audio. I just didn't understand why I was sooo far off when I was trying to do the right thing. Right now, it appears to be the 1-5 things I listed above. Mostly mic placement, and scene selection to tell this type of story. I will fix these things in the future.
 
Awesome post C2V!! Great advice! IanB just keep it up.. My first production was on a short doing audio...What a nightmare!!! The volume dials on the camera were bumped causing all of the audio to be totally useless!! I was devastated since I just bought my new eng44 mixer , Sony 7506's, mk012 and sweet boom!! ....I had to ADR the whole short....We did however still take 3rd in Lossfest ;)
Anyway, what I am saying is you learn from every shoot so dont feel to bad... Looks like you learned your way around the audio post suite!

Good Luck!
Geoff
 
IanB,

OK, maybe the better question then is how given X limitations you can create something that really looks polished. There is an old theatre saying that "that you can not fix becomes an artistic choice".

So given you are going to be a one man band I would suggest concentrate on only one thing at a time, as much as possible. Do the sit down interview, and focus on getting clear sound. Shoot the walk through with a lav but know your mostly going to use the sit down so get the guide to show you what they talked about sitting down. Get lots of B Roll. You can schedule your before and afters with more flexibility so I would have someone working the camera there. If not your going to have to do a bunch of shoot, replay - is it good enough?, shoot again. You will always have to check but the person behind will catch the "your not looking in the camera", "you bopped out of frame" etc and save you a bunch of time.

Then cut them really tight. Most of these magazine type pieces are around three minutes to five minutes, which is right where you were.

If you can focus on just one aspect most of the time, you will solve a lot of your post trauma.

When you get some time (lets see 16 month old toddler that would be ... 2027 or so) you need to find a few more friends if all of your current ones "are unreliable, drop things, F&*K up your gear, hit buttons they aren't supposed too, and generally add more headache than it is worth"...
 
Trying to get your dialogue to to sound like "CSI" is probably an unreal expectation. That's a big budget show with a VERY experienced production sound crew (Mick Fowler, the sound mixer, is one of the best, and nicest, in the business). His audio package is worth well over $100,000. Plus, as I said, he and his crew is very experienced, and they know every trick in the book. THEN you have the folks in post production. There is a whole team of sound editors, from dialogue, sound fx, foley, and backgrounds. And THEN you have the mix stage where some real magic happens. Nothing is more amazing to me than to see really good post re-recording mixers clean up dialogue. It's amazing what those guys can do.

All of that costs A LOT of money. Don't take this as me saying you shouldn't expect to get good audio, because you can, and having at least one person there that really knows what's up is a big help. I think the idea of "think Unwrapped" is a great one. My kids love that show, so I've seen it a lot. It's all b-roll stuff with VO, with the occasional talking head with the head of the company.

I like the idea of having at least one sound mixer there with capable gear. Bring a recorder along. If it were me, I would spend all my extra time recording sound FX of the whole process. Getting access to places like this is rare, and I would try to record everything, even if it never gets used for this project. You can never have too many sound fx in your library.
 
IanB said:
4. Bring the wireless with you into the scene's ....don't leave it back thinking it can cover 400 linear feet of machinery floor. (I didn't know where I was going, so why did I make the receiver static??)

Ian
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What I have done in the past to get RF equipment around at such distances is to put a 12V battery with a 120 V inverter on a cart, then rolled the cart along as needed to keep the sender and receiver in good line-of-sight and proximity.

This is not for 'audio' applications, but other types of communication equipment that uses RF.

For RF in addition to signal dropping of due to distance, the distance also increases the 'spred' of signals arriving by pathways other than line-of-sight, and this degrades the receiver's ability to 'sort out' the signals.

While not in your band, when I test my 802.11 access point with my 'mobile' device in my house, just closing a door will get a 10 dBm drop, and if the signal is about -65 dBm, that means the result of that simple act drops the signal down to -75 dBm, which is the bottom edge of 'good enough' signal for such things as 'snappy' video downloadings, etc.

For the UHF band where most pro wireless mics are, things may be a bit better, but if there is significant metal in the environment, think like you are walking in a narrow canyon and you try to have a conversation with some one some distance ahead... due to the echos you probably will give up pretty quickly...
 
Thanks for the tips on "unwrapped' they do show a lot of machinery, and I will use the VO next time to convey the message, rather than the actual grinding metal of a machine! Also, planning on getting a differant Lav mic? Do people hate the AT803 that much?
 
IanB said:
... and I will use the VO next time to convey the message, rather than the actual grinding metal of a machine!
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Hold on... VO helps alleviate the need for you to shoot and keep yourself in the frame. It's all about the show's host being involved with the segment without being in the frame. Never sacrifice good nats recording in the field. Get some sound from that machine! That's what brings it to life for the viewer: seeing and hearing the process.
 
You have to find friends... BUT !!!!!! ( a very very very very big but this is): Find friends which are doing sound or image....

Are you going to ask a a friend who's doing electricity to do the plumbing ? And a friend who's doing cooking to do the electricity ???
 
Ian,

These ideas overlap some of what's been said. I am in the same position as you, figuring out how to do everything so I can get it done by myself. If you can find the right volunteer(s), it's wonderful, but bringing someone in for technical work can end up very frustrating trying to get them to a basic level of competence.

When it comes to recording sound, background sounds/noise will always be your enemy. Fortunately, there are fairly simple/cheap things you can do to help level the battle field. Be aware that I'm generalizing here.

Close mics can help to mask background sounds. Sounds closest to the mic will usually dampen sounds further away from the mic. Have you ever used Sound Forge to remove the "center" track of audio (those sounds that are common to both sides of a stereo recording)? If you do, you'll often hear things that were masked by the center track. I've heard cymbals hit the floor, background singers smacking their lips, people talking -- tons of background noises/sounds. And they all were not evident in the final recording because the center track was masking them.

As was said above, put the lav mic on the company spokesman. Then you always have him miked, even when he turns away from the camera as he did several times. And there's no bringing up the importance of sound to him which could make him self-conscious in that regard.

You can use background noise/sounds to reduce background noise/sounds :-) To do so, you need samples of the background audio, recorded at the same location and time where your scene is to be recorded. This means that when location recording you want to ALWAYS record the background audio before you actually start action in your scene. 5-10 seconds should be sufficient. No talking, clearing your throat, whatever. Just start recording the video/audio and silently count to 5 or 10 before starting your action. I even do this in sound controlled environments -- it has saved me on occasion.

Here's how to use this background noise/sound as a noise reduction sample in Sound Forge: http://www.custcenter.com/cgi-bin/sonypictures.cfg/php/enduser/std_adp.php?p_faqid=1107

What you want to do is use your 5-10 seconds to reduce noise in all of the scene's audio. You can reduce noise a lot, but you have to be careful not to overuse this tool and cause phasing in your important audio (it starts sounding ringy, as if you're in a barrel/pipe).

As for objectionable momentary sounds, maybe Sound Forge has a tool to highlight and delete them. Adobe Audition 3.0 has such a tool (I'm not sure if Adobe Soundbooth has this). You bring up a spectral frequency display (audio waveforms expressed in colors) and highlight the momentary sound. Delete it and it's gone. I have removed audience coughing, sneezing, throat clearing, etc. using this tool -- as if it never happened in the first place :-) I've also used it to remove clangs, bangs, snaps, pops, whatever. It's a killer feature that removes only the major frequencies of the momentary sound. This means it doesn't affect your audio timeline/sync.

The worst case scenario for using noise to reduce noise is when the noise has a wide frequency range or is in the frequency range of the audio you want to keep. A wide frequency range noise reduction will basically end up as a reduction in volume. A noise in the vocal range can result in negatively affecting the sound of the voice talent. But, it never hurts to try and see what happens.

And like has already been said, record a lot of the background sounds. They can be used when you want to have louder background audio in a scene. Like a scene with no VO and the background audio in the scene is boring (your sacks of cacao pan). An interesting background "noise" will keep such a relatively silent scene audibly interesting, and it can include a fade in or out to match the sound levels of the previous and following scenes.

Remember that sound at the end of one scene can be an excellent setup for the following scene. Of course, sound can overlap from the preceding or the following scene. For example, at the end of one scene, you can start fading in on part of the 5-10 seconds of background sounds you recorded for the following scene to give a smooth flow to the overall transition. It also can make the pace of the video seem more active, too.

Hope this helps you in some way.

Bobby
 
Bobby,
Really great post here. You have added a lot to the conversation. I am going to play with some of my source audio that was recorded on the lav and the noise reduction software and tutorials you posted about above. If I follow the recommendations here, and can use the software more appropriately, I think I can get my audio to be much clearer and without all the distraction that I am getting right now.

Thank you for your help! I will post results soon (maybe today?)
Ian

* Edit *

After using some of the techniques Bobby provided links to above, I was able to tweak the audio, and get a differant sound (I won't dare say better for fear of decapitation). I like the edited sound better, just because the speakers voice is clear, and there isn't so much back-ground hum and noise in the scene. I can only use head-phones right now (at the day job) but you can get the idea. The real question here, is this something people normally do, right now I am thinking it is for me, no matter the equipment I am using, very powerful software tool I felt. Then again, don't shoot me, I am just putting it out there to keep the conversation going and get more feedback. (Video will be up soon)

Password = "taza"

 
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IanB said:
After using some of the techniques Bobby provided links to above, I was able to tweak the audio, and get a differant sound (I won't dare say better for fear of decapitation). I like the edited sound better, just because the speakers voice is clear, and there isn't so much back-ground hum and noise in the scene. I can only use head-phones right now (at the day job) but you can get the idea. The real question here, is this something people normally do, right now I am thinking it is for me, no matter the equipment I am using, very powerful software tool I felt. Then again, don't shoot me, I am just putting it out there to keep the conversation going and get more feedback.
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There are several challenges with noise reduction, and some of them are also applicable to any post-production sound processing. You have to be very, very careful with noise reduction, and the best rule is to do very small amounts in several passes, rather than larger amounts in very few passes. If you push it too far (either too much in one pass, or too many passes) you end up with what you have in some of the samples in your video: that swirly digital artifacting that sounds like a bad Internet download. This results from too much of the information being removed, which is pretty much the same as having a file that is too compressed. Think of it as the audio version of pixellated video or still images.

Another challenge you'll face has to do with the original integrity of your recorded audio. if it was too compressed, or too low-level, when it was recorded, you will find that you cannot push it too far in post. The more you do to the signal, even if you aren't removing information as with noise reduction, the more the software may have to re-sample the audio. If there's not enough there to begin with, it has to fill in the gaps with a "best guess" and you will again end up with the swirly, digital artifacting.

Honestly, the audio from the lav, with no NR or EQ applied, sound much better than the audio that you've tweaked. I don't know where your recording levels were metering on the H4n, or how much NR you applied in any given pass, but the post-processing has destroyed the signal. Also, never rely on the mantra that you can fix it in post. Those are famous last words. Set your recording levels properly, get the lav on the interviewee (as we have discussed), and focus on getting the audio clean the first time. The less you have to do to the signal in post, the better off you'll be.

In all productions, I'd much rather have a clean signal that I can work with as opposed to a recording at which I have to throw all sorts of tools to get it where it needs to be.
 
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I would have to agree with C2V. I like the original a lot better than the NR.
The NR seems dull and you do hear that NR artifacts sound.

The rule on NR is to always ask your self is it better or just different? When your working to try and fix one problem you often get so focused on dealing with it that you miss the problems your creating. It's a very easy trap to get into especially if something needs a bunch of work so you going pretty heavy.

I suspect that if you give yourself 24 hours and listen again you will come to the same conclusion.

But maybe not and it's your show and just our opinions. If it's only going to be viewed streamed then maybe people will think its part of the compression ad it won't bother them???
 
Oh, and while I will often use some light NR on tracks, no it's not something that is done all the time. I'm usually using NR tools to salvage tracks that should have been done better. Sometimes I will use light NR to get the noise floor of two clips to match. Removing a constant tone like HVAC is generally more successful that trying to lower a constantly changing BG like you have.

One trick that might help is to take your noise sample and filter it and remove a bunch of the vocal range freq. That way the NR will leave the voice alone and the artifacting will tend to be in the areas we are not paying as much attention to.
 
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