Dealing With Distorted Audio

P

Phil Maker

Well-known member
I'm doing a doc and I have one great scene where the subject is screaming at the top of her lungs for about 30 seconds. It's an amazing scene but it's completely distorted. What can I do? I have a couple ideas, but I don't know if they are acceptable solutions.

1) I turn down the volume and hope for the best.

2) I inform the audience that this portion of the movie will be distorted.

3) I play just the video in absolute silence (or with music) with subtitles.

Any suggestions would be appreciated.
 
Well if your audio is clipping then it's pretty much shot. You could always redub it, if that's an option for you. I like your third idea though, that could really be an interesting effect.
 
Yes I know it's shot and no I can't redub it without it sounding fake. I'm wondering if I lower the volume, would it sound too offensive or would the audience accept it as a stylistic choice considering the situation with it being a doc and all. Or is there a way to mask the clipped parts so they're not so noticeable?
 
We were just having a discussion about repairing bad audio. Can you post a link to a WAV file of just the bad audio? I'd be willing to try to repair the clipping. No guarantees, but I'll give it a shot. There are also some pretty good audio guys on the board that might take a whack as well.
 
As you know, once its clipped its hard to get back. One way is ADR if you can, or even better is to simulate the same space or use the actual space you did before, do a rehearsal with the scream with proper levels and then record a few takes,

but if absolutely you cant do any of the above and just wanna deliver it, you can try a plugin. But it may hurt your project if you do, if its not done well.

good luck
 
Whoa--that's some screaming. :) I'll post a processed file tomorrow, but you got some major distortion. If it can't be cleaned up, I'd say use it as is because it gets the emotional tension across--that's for sure.
 
barry, with all due respect, that quite a challenge (which is good) but thats what i call a scream. darn
 
I just got Izotope's RX and it has done some amazing digital distortion clean up on a jet by that was total garbage.
Barry, if it looks hopeless I'll give it a shot with RX.
 
Haha--actually I did a few different runs with RX last night and it did improve the track, but it was still pretty bad. I think it's a mix of both analog distortion and digital clipping--it really spun my head around listening to it at 2:00 am. :) I'm planning on doing a few more processor-intensive runs tonight to see if I can get any futher, but if you want to take a shot too--go ahead. I'm pretty new with RX and I've had some good success with clipped audio, but haven't worked with anything this bad.
 
http://www.mediafire.com/?bzllfcdywzm

It doesn't look like RX was able to do a major restoration, but it's a bit better. I don't think there was enough good audio surrounding the clips to reasonably interpolate the clipped material. In a doc, I would still use it--distortion and all--because it's obviously a powerful moment.
 
Thank you. It is better. I think as long as it A) doesn't blow people's ear drums out, and B) is just this one short clip -- it should be ok to use in the doc. I'll try it several different ways and choose the best.

Thanks again!
 
Barry, I'm trying to import that RX file into FCP but it won't let me. I'm getting an error message. Any idea why?
 
I'm not a final cut guy, so I can't help you there. Is it the extra space in the filename? Some programs don't like spaces, so maybe try renaming. I can also try a WAV export if you still have problems. Can you play in any other program--if not maybe the file got corupted and I can re-upload.
 
I played it, it sounds good. Took out the space, FCP still doesn't like it. Could you send it as a WAV file? Thank you so much!
 
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