Is there a way to improve this audio?

[stringz]

During filming I accidently knocked the ganged switch of my mixer. I did not realise for a couple of minutes. Unfortunately due to time restrictions we could not go back and redo it. The resultant audio can be heard on the the attached file. I tried to fix it in Izotope speech cleaner, but apart from reducing the background noise I could not improve the sound of the dialogue. There are a few seconds on the end of the file with good sound, for reference, once I had discovered my mistake! This is the original WAV with none of my Izotope experiments.

Any tips would be much appreciated.

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/5229334/audio/BT Andy Jehan.wav

 

[Alex H.]

You're dealing with phase cancellation here. So did you have a lav and a boom that accidentally got mixed together?

The problem is that phase cancellation means that some frequencies have been lost completely, and there's no way to add those back in. You're pretty much stuck with it.

 

[stringz]

You're dealing with phase cancellation here. So did you have a lav and a boom that accidentally got mixed together?

The problem is that phase cancellation means that some frequencies have been lost completely, and there's no way to add those back in. You're pretty much stuck with it.

Yes, that's exactly what happened. Not good huh?

 

[Alex H.]

Yes, that's exactly what happened. Not good huh?

Nope, not good.

Phase cancellation happens when two mics that are at different distances from the source are mixed together. This discrepancy causes the sound to hit one mic slightly later than the other, and that puts the two mics out of phase (meaning one mic's positive signal is up against the other's negative, so they cancel each other out). That's what gives it that "hollow" sound, almost like the guy is speaking in a can.

The more out of phase the signals are, the more frequencies are cancelled out. At a perfect 180º out of phase, all signal is lost, but you likely won't experience that in a situation like this. The cancellation leaves audio sounding a bit hollow, often with a touch of "robotic" or "synthesized" sound to it as well. Since you've completely lost some audio information, it's gone forever.

 

[stringz]

Nope, not good.

Phase cancellation happens when two mics that are at different distances from the source are mixed together. This discrepancy causes the sound to hit one mic slightly later than the other, and that puts the two mics out of phase (meaning one mic's positive signal is up against the other's negative, so they cancel each other out). That's what gives it that "hollow" sound, almost like the guy is speaking in a can.

The more out of phase the signals are, the more frequencies are cancelled out. At a perfect 180º out of phase, all signal is lost, but you likely won't experience that in a situation like this. The cancellation leaves audio sounding a bit hollow, often with a touch of "robotic" or "synthesized" sound to it as well. Since you've completely lost some audio information, it's gone forever.

Thanks for your concise explanation.

I'm so angry with myself for doing this. Oh well onto the next job....