Terrible mistake on sound (With mic) at DVinfo.net

Kostas Papadakis · November 2nd, 2008, 11:33 AM

Hi to all of you.
First always sorry me about my english-american.
I bought recently the JVC GZ-HD3. I had an external mic and put it on the camera for better sound. The mistake was that i forgot to open the mic and when i saw the video from the camcorder there was a lot of sssssssssssssssstttt (blow). The voices was at low tone and i can hear it but not a lot. The most sound is from sssssssstttt. \
Is there any way to get the voices and then later put it with the video i got?
Thanks a lot.

Paul R Johnson · November 2nd, 2008, 11:48 AM

sorry, I don't understand.

You forgot to open then microphone - what do you mean?

The noise. Do you mean a hiss, or do you mean wind?

Very confused

Kostas Papadakis · November 2nd, 2008, 11:59 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Paul R Johnson

sorry, I don't understand.

You forgot to open then microphone - what do you mean?

The noise. Do you mean a hiss, or do you mean wind?

Very confused

I forgot to open the switch of the external microphone. (ON/OFF button)
The noise. YEs i hear a lot of hiss and on the background i hear the voices of the video.

Sorry for the confusion

Ali Jafri · November 2nd, 2008, 12:12 PM

Kostas, if you plugged in an external mic then i'm guessing that would automatically bypass the internal built-in mic. Then if you forget to switch that external mic on then i'm afraid you really have made a terrible mistake. I'm guessing that the hiss is probably when you've turned up the volume to its maximum or have normalized the audio in post in the hope of getting something. But as far as i understand what you've written, you do not have any audio and may have to go for a reshoot. Don't worry, its happened to the best of us :)

Perrone Ford · November 2nd, 2008, 12:23 PM

It might be able to be improved a "little", but if you didn't record it, it's not there. Sorry.

Kostas Papadakis · November 2nd, 2008, 12:30 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ali Jafri

I'm guessing that the hiss is probably when you've turned up the volume to its maximum or have normalized the audio in post in the hope of getting something. But as far as i understand what you've written, you do not have any audio and may have to go for a reshoot. Don't worry, its happened to the best of us :)

Yes i hear the voices when i open the vol to max but then i hear a lot of hiss. I can't take a reshoot and that's why the mistake is terrible. I thought to use a sound cleaning program but i don't know if i will get something to use.
Yes i know that its happened to best of all... :)

Ali Jafri · November 2nd, 2008, 04:09 PM

Kostas, although there might be some software plugins to isolate human speech from background noise i don't think it restores the audio to anything even close to broadcast production value. A company called Waves has vst and direct x audio plugins by the name of x-noise and z-noise that may help in isolating human speech but it'll end up sounding very artificial. I don't think its used by anyone other than surveillance experts and secret service people. Still, you can have some fun playing around with it if you like. Good luck!

Colin McDonald · November 2nd, 2008, 04:17 PM

You should beware of human speech you can hear faintly through electronic hissing
White Noise (2005)

:-)

Kostas Papadakis · November 2nd, 2008, 04:39 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ali Jafri

Kostas, although there might be some software plugins to isolate human speech from background noise i don't think it restores the audio to anything even close to broadcast production value. A company called Waves has vst and direct x audio plugins by the name of x-noise and z-noise that may help in isolating human speech but it'll end up sounding very artificial. I don't think its used by anyone other than surveillance experts and secret service people. Still, you can have some fun playing around with it if you like. Good luck!

Thanks a lot Ali. I'm checking it know.

Gary Nattrass · November 2nd, 2008, 06:31 PM

The trouble is what you are hearing is crosstalk from the analogue signal bleeding onto the mic amps.
You are putting around 60db's of gain in to actually hear anything at all and this is bringing the noise floor of the mic amps up hence the noise.

The big problem will be that once you have filtered out the noise element the audio level will be be back down to -60dbs and too low to hear.

There are pro set-ups such as the tc electronics 6000 and cedar machin es that will help but they cost thousands of euros.

As an ex pro I cant think of anything that will easily do this to repair the faulty sound so it may be that it has to be written off as a bad job and an experience learned.

P.S. Even if it is with a small earpiece ALWAYS check your sound is going to tape or even going into your camera at the correct level.

Ron Cooper · November 2nd, 2008, 07:09 PM

Hi Kostas,

Be thankful you can hear ANYTHING ! I did it once and there was absolutely nothing on tape.

If you can hear the speech faintly among the hiss, I would consider having someone re-read the dialogue with phones on so they can get the timing right & then re-record and re-sync with original. However, I realise this is a simplistic view as I don't know what you were actually recording.

May be better than nothing, or ending up up with an extremely poor audio track otherwise, which I am certain you will only get if you try to restore the original, or may be you could do a mixture of both.

Ron Cooper.

Ty Ford · November 4th, 2008, 06:51 AM

Nothing to add as a fix, but this is another opportunity for readers not directly involved with this situation to hear/read these words; Always Listen With Good Headphones!

I joined this forum to help others four years ago this month. Four years has gone by pretty quickly. In that time, the percentage of requests for help with bad production audio which could have been avoided by listening with good headphones is (conservatively) well over 50%. (Please correct me if you think I'm wrong.)

I'm not trying to grind on anyone here; just trying to help this most simple of problems go away. Sony MDR7506 or Audio Technica ATH-M50 headphones are pretty much industry standard for location audio headphones, BTW.

Be careful out there.

Regards,

Ty Ford

Petri Kaipiainen · November 4th, 2008, 07:05 AM

There are also audio level meters there somewhere on the camera and/or viewdfinder, or at least should be. If the bars are not moving at all (like in this case must have been), something IS WRONG.

Ty Ford · November 4th, 2008, 07:26 AM

Petri,

Useful, but NOT GOOD ENOUGH! You can send line level from a mixer to a camera's mic level inputs and set a "proper" level using meters and that audio will be ABSOLUTELY DISTORTED. And that's just in calibration.

Meters-only is inviting disaster because you're not hearing the audio. Many things can compromise the audio that you can hear with headphones. Without them you are shooting deaf.

You look though the eye-piece when shooting, right? Best practices demands you listen to the audio with good headphones.

Regards,

Ty Ford

Petri Kaipiainen · November 4th, 2008, 07:34 AM

I was not saying "meters only", just that if the meters do not show anything, something must be wrong. Those can be seen even without headphones. I would not shoot if the viewdfinder is black, I would not shoot it the audio level meters are not showing signals.

Of course I check with headphones, but if everything is running ok and there are no changes in the system, AND the meters behave logically, I just MIGHT take the cans off every now and then...

November 2nd, 2008, 11:33 AM	#1
Kostas Papadakis New Boot Join Date: Aug 2008 Location: Alexandroupolis GREECE Posts: 22	Terrible mistake on sound (With mic) Hi to all of you. First always sorry me about my english-american. I bought recently the JVC GZ-HD3. I had an external mic and put it on the camera for better sound. The mistake was that i forgot to open the mic and when i saw the video from the camcorder there was a lot of sssssssssssssssstttt (blow). The voices was at low tone and i can hear it but not a lot. The most sound is from sssssssstttt. \ Is there any way to get the voices and then later put it with the video i got? Thanks a lot.

November 2nd, 2008, 12:12 PM	#4
Ali Jafri Major Player Join Date: May 2008 Location: Karachi, Pakistan Posts: 210	Kostas, if you plugged in an external mic then i'm guessing that would automatically bypass the internal built-in mic. Then if you forget to switch that external mic on then i'm afraid you really have made a terrible mistake. I'm guessing that the hiss is probably when you've turned up the volume to its maximum or have normalized the audio in post in the hope of getting something. But as far as i understand what you've written, you do not have any audio and may have to go for a reshoot. Don't worry, its happened to the best of us :) __________________ Windows 7 Ultimate 64-bit // i7 2600K // 16GB RAM // ASUS P8P67 Board // NVIDIA GTX 470 Sony Vegas Pro 13 // Adobe Premiere Pro CC 2014 // http://vimeo.com/alijafri

November 2nd, 2008, 12:23 PM	#5
Perrone Ford Inner Circle Join Date: Nov 2006 Location: Tallahassee, FL Posts: 4,100	It might be able to be improved a "little", but if you didn't record it, it's not there. Sorry. __________________ DVX100, PMW-EX1, Canon 550D, FigRig, Dell Octocore, Avid MC4/5, MB Looks, RedCineX, Matrox MX02 mini, GTech RAID, Edirol R-4, Senn. G2 Evo, Countryman, Moles and Lowels.

November 2nd, 2008, 04:09 PM	#7
Ali Jafri Major Player Join Date: May 2008 Location: Karachi, Pakistan Posts: 210	Kostas, although there might be some software plugins to isolate human speech from background noise i don't think it restores the audio to anything even close to broadcast production value. A company called Waves has vst and direct x audio plugins by the name of x-noise and z-noise that may help in isolating human speech but it'll end up sounding very artificial. I don't think its used by anyone other than surveillance experts and secret service people. Still, you can have some fun playing around with it if you like. Good luck! __________________ Windows 7 Ultimate 64-bit // i7 2600K // 16GB RAM // ASUS P8P67 Board // NVIDIA GTX 470 Sony Vegas Pro 13 // Adobe Premiere Pro CC 2014 // http://vimeo.com/alijafri

November 2nd, 2008, 06:31 PM	#10
Gary Nattrass Trustee Join Date: Apr 2008 Location: Cornsay Durham UK Posts: 1,992	The trouble is what you are hearing is crosstalk from the analogue signal bleeding onto the mic amps. You are putting around 60db's of gain in to actually hear anything at all and this is bringing the noise floor of the mic amps up hence the noise. The big problem will be that once you have filtered out the noise element the audio level will be be back down to -60dbs and too low to hear. There are pro set-ups such as the tc electronics 6000 and cedar machin es that will help but they cost thousands of euros. As an ex pro I cant think of anything that will easily do this to repair the faulty sound so it may be that it has to be written off as a bad job and an experience learned. P.S. Even if it is with a small earpiece ALWAYS check your sound is going to tape or even going into your camera at the correct level. __________________ Over 15 minutes in Broadcast Film and TV production: http://www.imdb.com/name/nm1044352/

November 2nd, 2008, 11:48 AM	#2
Paul R Johnson Inner Circle Join Date: Nov 2005 Location: Lowestoft - UK Posts: 4,045	sorry, I don't understand. You forgot to open then microphone - what do you mean? The noise. Do you mean a hiss, or do you mean wind? Very confused

November 2nd, 2008, 04:17 PM	#8
Colin McDonald Trustee Join Date: Dec 2007 Location: Glasgow, Scotland Posts: 1,546	You should beware of human speech you can hear faintly through electronic hissing White Noise (2005) :-)

November 2nd, 2008, 07:09 PM	#11
Ron Cooper Major Player Join Date: Sep 2005 Location: Sydney, Australia Posts: 481	Hi Kostas, Be thankful you can hear ANYTHING ! I did it once and there was absolutely nothing on tape. If you can hear the speech faintly among the hiss, I would consider having someone re-read the dialogue with phones on so they can get the timing right & then re-record and re-sync with original. However, I realise this is a simplistic view as I don't know what you were actually recording. May be better than nothing, or ending up up with an extremely poor audio track otherwise, which I am certain you will only get if you try to restore the original, or may be you could do a mixture of both. Ron Cooper.

November 4th, 2008, 06:51 AM	#12
Ty Ford Inner Circle Join Date: Nov 2004 Location: Baltimore, MD USA Posts: 2,337	Nothing to add as a fix, but this is another opportunity for readers not directly involved with this situation to hear/read these words; Always Listen With Good Headphones! I joined this forum to help others four years ago this month. Four years has gone by pretty quickly. In that time, the percentage of requests for help with bad production audio which could have been avoided by listening with good headphones is (conservatively) well over 50%. (Please correct me if you think I'm wrong.) I'm not trying to grind on anyone here; just trying to help this most simple of problems go away. Sony MDR7506 or Audio Technica ATH-M50 headphones are pretty much industry standard for location audio headphones, BTW. Be careful out there. Regards, Ty Ford __________________ Ty Ford's Audio Bootcamp Field Guide Ty Ford's Audio Video Blog

November 4th, 2008, 07:05 AM	#13
Petri Kaipiainen Major Player Join Date: Apr 2007 Location: Espoo Finland Posts: 380	There are also audio level meters there somewhere on the camera and/or viewdfinder, or at least should be. If the bars are not moving at all (like in this case must have been), something IS WRONG.

November 4th, 2008, 07:26 AM	#14
Ty Ford Inner Circle Join Date: Nov 2004 Location: Baltimore, MD USA Posts: 2,337	Petri, Useful, but NOT GOOD ENOUGH! You can send line level from a mixer to a camera's mic level inputs and set a "proper" level using meters and that audio will be ABSOLUTELY DISTORTED. And that's just in calibration. Meters-only is inviting disaster because you're not hearing the audio. Many things can compromise the audio that you can hear with headphones. Without them you are shooting deaf. You look though the eye-piece when shooting, right? Best practices demands you listen to the audio with good headphones. Regards, Ty Ford __________________ Ty Ford's Audio Bootcamp Field Guide Ty Ford's Audio Video Blog

November 4th, 2008, 07:34 AM	#15
Petri Kaipiainen Major Player Join Date: Apr 2007 Location: Espoo Finland Posts: 380	I was not saying "meters only", just that if the meters do not show anything, something must be wrong. Those can be seen even without headphones. I would not shoot if the viewdfinder is black, I would not shoot it the audio level meters are not showing signals. Of course I check with headphones, but if everything is running ok and there are no changes in the system, AND the meters behave logically, I just MIGHT take the cans off every now and then...