URGENT: Need help fixing poor audio

Jaime Valles

Jaime Valles

Veteran
Fair warning: Plea for help / sob story / cautionary tale below. :Drogar-BlackEye(DBG

I'm in need of your assistance, DVX Users. The SD card that had the good, clean audio of an interview I shot has been lost somehow (don't ask... I'm furious), and I only have the audio from my C100 camera's built-in microphone available.

Here is a 20-second sample of the audio I now have no choice but to use:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/qgst2s7mpu31ap7/Bad audio test file.wav?dl=0

I've tried messing with the audio filters in Adobe Premiere Pro and Adobe Audition, but it somehow sounds worse than the original when I try to fix it (like the person is underwater). I'm not a sound engineer, and my usual sound guy is unavailable to help me this weekend, and this edit is due on Monday. If you have any idea how to make this sound passable (way too much air conditioning noise / echo in the room) please let me know how I can do it.

I know it will never sound as good as the Sennheiser MKH50 boom mic that was 12 inches above the interviewee, but anything that can help would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks in advance!
 
You could try the iZotope Rx, which can attenuate the BG noise and reflections. iZotope Rx Advanced is costly though. I use Magix's (formally Sony Creative Software) NR-2, SpectralLayers and SPL's De-Verb, since I already have them. Whatever you use or spend, it's still not gonna sound like a properly placed mic unfortunately.
 
Rick R said:
You could try the iZotope Rx
Click to expand...

If Izotope can't at least improve the sound nothing can, although it might still be poor audio. They also make RX Elements which sells for about $100. This is Edward Snowden like tech. Absolutely incredible. In my first test applying the filters was approximately real time.
 
The free audio program Audacity has a noise removal function. Whether it will do the job you need, I do not know, although I have used it on occasion. But the price is right, so it might be worth a try.
 
jaime-

sadly, we have all been there.

whether it was audio or the shot or the edit, mistakes happen.

find a workable solution and when you look your client in the eye do not blink!

i'm rooting for you.

be well.

rob
smalltalk.productions
 
Thank you all for the suggestions and efforts. I'm happy to report that there's hope!

I tried iZotope RX and it's truly incredible. I couldn't believe my ears. Of course, it's still not as good as the original boom audio, but it's now something I can definitely work with. The A/C background noise is completely gone, and the voice still sounds natural and clear. The difference after using RX is astonishing. This is software that should be in every editor's computer. It truly is saving my bacon right now.

Thanks again, everyone!
 
Glad to hear RX is working.

When you do a post mortem on this gig, it might be good to find out what happened to the backup of the SD card...because it's S.O.P. to back that up immediately before handing it off to someone, so I assume it happened.

One thing I've learned, in the digital world, if data doesn't exist in two places it doesn't exist at all, and thankfully I learned this very early on (in college, in fact). I don't care if the client is in a huge rush. I'm doing to take a few minutes to make a copy of the data on an SD card to a separate drive or computer.
 
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