Easy sound treatment?

rawfa

rawfa

Veteran
Guys, please don´t start throwing rocks yet....but is there some sort of moderately effective AUTOMATED sound cleaner software out there? Preferably free. I don´t really have the ear to distinguish all the small subtleties required for a good manual sound treatment and due to my projects' dimensions I don´t think hiring a post production sound technician is really necessary.

P.S - I work with Premiere
 
Nope, there is no real susbstitution for sound treatment. You can mask some of the BG noise and room sound with music beds and sound design. But when it comes down to the brass tacks........if your room sounds echoey and full of reverb/noise..........you can use a hyper cardioid to cut it down slightly.......but the room is what it is. It's physics. You have to alter the physical aspects of the room acoustic signature to really make a difference. You can help this with sound blankets/gobos, making sure the image "explains" the sound you hear, mic choice, etc.

I am not going to throw rocks, but I am going to tell you.......the value of somebody that knows what they are doing vs. you wanting a "quick fix" for a complex audio problem......... You have to weigh it out. What is the project worth to you? There is no single program that takes a bad recording and makes it gold. You get it the best you can on location, then try to manually clean it up in post. And this is very difficult for a beginner. There is EQ, NR, phase cancellation (yes, I use PC as a tool sometimes).......all at once, on the software side.

There is no magic box or button. That is why good post-guys can ask to be paid and get it. The knowledge and experience they have between their ears is extremely valuable. And usually not free.
 
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Thanks for your inpunt. This project in particular is a favor I´m doing. I understand that there is no way to make a bad sound good, but comparing this situation to RAW in photography, there is some room for improvement, right? What I mean here is, lets say I have capture the sound properly...how do I "make it better" on post?
 
Well, to bring in the camera comparison further........

Is there a setting in RAW with one button that corrects the exposure, neg fill, lighting, color temp, color filtering all at once? Not that I know of, unless you set up each one individually, then create a preset. Same thing with audio. And it probably isn't the same thing everytime.

Audio is just as complex as photography. And maybe even harder in some aspects.

How do you make sound better in post? There is EQ, filtering, the list is large. But most of the time the change is very subtle. You are asking a question that has hours/days/years of explaining with it. I can ask "how do you make a picture better in post?" Answer: it is different for every image. Same with audio.

I am trying to help, so don't think I am being rude or intentionally trying to mislead you. Let me ask you this: How long have you been shooting? What have you learned so far? Is there more you can learn? How much time are you willing to invest in learning how to get good audio vs. continuing to learn how to get great video and lighting? Audio and video go hand in hand........but they are two different skillsets with steep learning curves each.
 
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I fully understand where you are coming from and I see now that my question was not really properly place.
Even though there isn´t a button that will make the image perfect the way you want there is the AUTO option on most RAW developers that will get the image at least closer to what a perfectly exposed image should be. Is there such a thing for sound?
 
Some programs have presets, but I rarely use them. They never do what I want. Or I start there and add more tweaks to the settings. What audio program are you using for your post work?

What is a perfectly exposed image? That is a very subjective thing and everyone will have a different opinion on that and is also based on the conditions of what is being shot/where it is being shot. Again......same with audio.
 
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On another forum someone suggested trying out Goldwave. Since I know nothing of audio I´like something that would give me a headstart to work from there. At the moment I don´t have a dedicated audio program. I was thinking audition due to the easy integration with Premiere.
 
Audition is not bad........I used to work a lot with it's predecessor "Cool Edit". But if it is like cool edit..........you will get the most out of it by NOT relying on the presets. I actually have a copy of Audition around here somewhere, but I am a Mac user.....and it doesn't work for Mac.

You are trying to tackle a very complex skillset that is new for you. You are going to need to explore the program you have or get. If you had a specific question on your audio or why it is "bad", it would make it easier to answer your question. Based on your first post.........run it through "noise reduction" first. Be gentle with the settings, because it will get weird if you don't.
 
Thanks, again. I know there is no going around testing, testing and more testing. I´m looking for a headstart because treating sound is not as "intuitive" as treating image. You need a lot more experience to evaluate a good sound than to evaluate a good image.
 
Audio is so complex that its very hard if not impossible to describe in word, and like stated before it is its own artform.

There is no magic plug in or program so the answer to that question is NO

most EQ and Compressors and every other type of plug-ins do come with presets, experiment with them see what the differences in the presets are, learn to correlate what you hear with how the settings changed. and just do this alot and you will eventually start to get IT.

Sound is almost like riding a bycicle, you can read about it all day long and people can tell you about it as well , but until you get on and start pedaling will you start to learn how to ride.

Good luck on your quest.

Cheers
 
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