Is there anyway to clean up audio in FCP?

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dalethompson

Well-known member
I was reviewing some footage last night and it appears some of the footage I shot last month has the audio a little bit softer than I originally thought. I think it's because of the mic placement but also because the speaker has a softer voice too.

Is there anyway to clean up the audio to make the audio louder in FCP? I'm used a Firestore FS4 for this, so the footage was converter to quicktime already.

If FCP cannot do this, is there any other software that someone can suggest that may do the trick>?

TIA,
Dale

P.S. I learned my lesson though after watching this... I'm in the market for a Sennheiser wireless kit.
 
Doubling up the audio tracks works... (Copy and paste them underneath) Other than that i believe you can increase the gain in Soundtrack pro... i assume this will leave you with more noise but if you are still desperate it could be an option....

Hope that helped



Tom.
 
In FCP 7 there is a Gain filter in the audio filters.

If you own any Final Cut Studio you can use Soundtrack Pro to raise the volume, plus you can use noise reduction to lower or try to lower the background noise that will be raised too.
 
If the audio was recorded poorly in the first place, you will have a hard time resurrecting it. But through a combination of these audio filters you should be able to get it sounding better:

Gain- In all vers of fcp that I can recall
Noise Gate- Use to bring down noise between lines.
Parametric EQ- If there's hiss or other noises, you can reduce them and then boost dialog frequencies.

If it's really noisy and you can go through soundtrack pro, there's a feature to take a sample of the ambient noise and then reduce it. You'll need to do this for every scene individually, (unless they all have the same background noise.)
 
David S. said:
Did you try increasing the levels?
Click to expand...

LOL...

Right - just in case you don't know this already, in the timeline there is an audio "keyframe" line that raises and lowers the level. This would be your first line of defense against a low signal. To see it, make sure the little button with the zigzag line near the lower left corner of the screen is selected. Then you'll see a black line over the audio tracks which you can drag upwards to increase level. You can also insert keyframes to custom-tailor the levels to a particular part of the clip. If you still can't get enough level, then the gain filter should be able to get it for you. If it's still low, add another gain filter, and so on.

On the other hand, if it's *that* low, you probably need to rethink your audio management at the point of shooting...
 
Wow, thanks to everyone for the suggestions, much appreciated!

I will try out the simplest of techniques or settings first and then progress to the more complex ones.

I'm a little P.O.'d at myself though right now. On some of the footage I have, I can hear a bit of the fan going off from my Firestore. I have the Firestore mounted on my HVX200 and it's a little bit near my Rode NT-2 mic, so it picked up the fan. It's not really loud but I'm a perfectionist, so it bothers me that I can hear it a bit. I'm now just securing the firestore lower on my Manfrotto legs so the fan won't be picked up.

Thanks again to everyone for the suggestions... I was actually losing sleep over the sound in FCP.
 
In FCS7 you can also use the Apply Normalization Gain command on a selected clip. It will go through your clip and set the audio level as high as possible without clipping. It's in the Modify > Audio menu. For best results, take your audio into Soundtrack Pro or a similar application.
 
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