I recently shot a wedding outside and the wind was horrible! I used everything that I had to reduce it at the time but its still pretty bad. I edit with FCP 6 and use Sound Forge. I was curious if anybody knows of any filters in those two applications that I could use to reduce the wind. I was able to bring the vocals up with a Compressor/Limiter filter but thats as far as I got.

Doesn't Sound Forge have a Noise Reduction filter in it? I thought it did. Anyway if it does find a piece of audio that is strictly the wind noise, pull a noise print of that, set the filter to the noise print, place that filter on the audio check to make sure you haven't changed the tenor of the vocal (meaning it doesn't sound like Mickey Mouse or some other kind of animal) and go from there.
Keep in mind that when it comes to wind you may not get it all but even if you get just 50% it'll be better than nothing. I've gotten as much as 90% of the wind out and as little as almost none. Take small bites at it though so if you go too far you can back it off a bit so you don't change the sound of the voice.
HTHs

Thanks a lot! Ill give that a try!

In Vegas, there is a free program out there called Sound Soap. It is a great tool for cleaning up sound. Also on PC side, Audacity (another free program) has a noise filter. You select a section of the sound bite that only has the noise and it cleans it from the rest of the track.

Ryan, the easy answer is try everything but always do it non-destructively.

The other thing I regret you'll find is that most filters are frequency oriented but wind isn't really a frequency oriented noise. My own experience is to try a reduce the low frequency rumble and accept that wind is difficult if not impossible to remove - because it disturbs the very medium of sound transmission.

Ryan,

Not trying to be a smart a$$ here, but wind noise needs to be removed at source, i.e. use well placed Lav mikes and Blimps. As Philip said, wind noise is not frequency orientated, well not in a steady fashion, if that makes sense!

You may have been using the above but I suspect not. Surf the net looking for comparisons, with and without protection, you'll be amazed. Actually, have a search through 'All things Audio' on this site, lots of info about noise........the type we record, which is normally secondary to the moving pic part :)

Good luck.

Al

Al,
I did an outdoor wedding last year and despite all my upfront efforts, lavs covered with foam windscreens and dead rats over that as well as all my other mics all covered the same, the winds of up to 40mph, the direction they were blowing in relationship to the mic placement still made for a fun filled time in post. I could hear it thru the headphones during the ceremony and knew it would be problematic but by some creative use of NR and EQ I was able to eliminate about 70% of the wind and keep the tenor of the voices so they didn't sound like little trapped animals. Even after proper preperations prior I still got "winded". Sometimes it's just mother nature and you know what they say "it's not nice to fool with mother nature".

I do agree 100% outdoors you need to take additional precautions and practice safe audio but still it happens, in this case it's possible the OP did do a proper setup then again maybe not.

Hi Don

I know the feeling well!! I had a couple about 18months ago who had an outdoor ceremony and we had a howling SW at around 30 knots coming straight into the wedding party!! Their home was also a few steps away from the beach. I actually cut up a shotgun mic foam sock and put that over the groom's mic and it also didn't help.... sometimes it's not your fault!!!

In Sony Vegas I found it does help to kill all frequencies below 400hz by around -12db ...thins the voice a little but it does take out the bad rumble. Sometimes however there is very little you can do ..especially on an open beach in a howling gale which will effectively be present at all frequencies!!

We are assuming here that the wedding has been and gone and the footage is full of wind noise so playing with the EQ is probably the best option!! I have yet to find a "magic" wind solution plugin but it would be nice!!! "Click the "Kill Wind" icon to elimate all mic wind noise"

Chris

Yeah wind can be a killer. No matter our best efforts sometimes the bear eats you.

When I do outoor ceremonies I write up a little statement that I have the bride and or groom sign and basically what it says is that due to the wind I cannot guarantee the quality of the audio. I explain to them that any noises might be picked up and I may not be able to clean it up without damaging the sound of their voices.
For example, very recently I did an outdoor ceremony and while there was a bit of wind that wasn't a problem, the large AC units behind where the "altar" was placed WAS a problem. I loaded in the footage and was able to eliminate about 90% of that noise by judicious use of NR. While there is still a bit of the AC unit blowin' in the wind, most is gone and you can hear the vows, the most important thing.
I always get some "room" tone on all my mics before the ceremony starts so I have a baseline to work off of. Sometimes though, no matter what you do, you lose. sigh, I wish people would think about this sort of stuff before they plan their outdoor ceremony. It would make life so much easier for us.

izotope RX may work for you. There's a trial version

iZotope RX - Complete Audio Restoration: Declipping, Declicker, Hum Removal, Denoiser, Spectral Repair, Restore, Remaster, Download (http://www.izotope.com/products/audio/rx/)

The best way to combat wind, is during the shoot, by reducing the mic input sensitivity.

Don,

I have to say, after I re-read Ryan's initial post I thought "Oops,may have been a bit heavy there" Then I thought, "Ah well, he'll tell me" and yes I agree, sometimes all is not enough.....Sometimes Mother Nature has her thumb out and enjoys going 'Squish, squish' on us mere mortals..... :)

Al

"Click the "Kill Wind" icon to elimate all mic wind noise"
Chris

Chris,

I like this option, I hope you're working on this as we speak...........

Al

OK, trade secret. If you have the budget. Find a couple good voice impersonators and have them ADR the entire ceremony! Throw on a slight reverb effect and walla, no-one is the wiser!

Hey Alan

I truely wish I could..every videographer would buy one just in case...wind is so multi-frequency it's virtually impossible. I did a shoot back in 2008 at Joondalup Resort and didn't realise their Koi pond and it's noisy fountain system was running so the bride's vows were quite heavily overlayed with water noise. Unlike wind it's fairly easy to filter out!!

Hmmm Denny, one could always get the B&G into the dubbing studio and repeat their vows in pristine studio conditions!! Adding some ambient noise would be quite easy!!

Chris

Hmm.. Chris, do you think we could charge extra for that? Call it the "Clear voice package"?? :)

Highpass filter at around 185 works for me.

John, do you mean you roll off everything under 185Hz or are you using some sort of parametric filter centred on 185Hz.

If the latter it would also be useful to know the bandwidth of your filter for anyone to make any use of your suggestion.

If the former it sounds much like what others might call a rumble filter.

But if it works anyone with noise to remove will want to try it.

Hi Philip, the former... just roll off.

It's just a standard filter in Adobe Premiere - there is highpass and lowpass. For rumbles (including wind) I add the highpass filter and choose somewhere between 75-200hz (experiment because it can make the sound a little thin.)

I've found also a good trick for outdoor weddings with high pitch sounds (trees rustling or crickets chirping) - lowpass at about 6000hz - they completely disappear leaving the vocals - amazing!

John, so it's a simple roll off. It was the 185Hz that troubled me because it's getting near to the telephone sound - middle A is 330Hz and I think the telephone pass filter is centred about that. Maybe a music backing track - if appropriate - would help fill the sound.

The 6K filter is interesting although at my age it's approaching the limit of audibility. I once facetiously suggested the solution to high pitch interference was older clients!

I recently shot a wedding outside and the wind was horrible! I used everything that I had to reduce it at the time but its still pretty bad. I edit with FCP 6 and use Sound Forge. I was curious if anybody knows of any filters in those two applications that I could use to reduce the wind. I was able to bring the vocals up with a Compressor/Limiter filter but thats as far as I got.

12 to 18db per octave roll off at 120 hz is often sufficient.

You mean to tell me you didn't have them do the wedding over again? :)

For my next wedding, I am hiring body doubles for the wide shots then green screening the B&G for the closeups. No sound issues that way.
















;)

Ryan --

Outdoor weddings in Wyoming can be such fun.

I had a similar --- maybe worse --- experience with a wedding I shot several years ago on the South Fork of the Shoshone south of Cody. I was able to get the sound usable with Sound Forge 8.

The minister and the couple were so close to the water that they might as well have been standing in the river. Just before the vows, blustery wind began spilling down the canyon right along the river. Flags stood straight out from the poles. The Matron of Honor tried to hold the Bride's veil on her head but had to give up and just take it off. The minister and the couple were getting buffeted in the wind. The minister sort of had his back to the wind and was wearing two lavaliers. My lavalier had a windscreen and gave sort of usable audio except for the times he turned sideways. The one for the p.a. system was hopeless. I had another lavalier on the groom. Sometimes, the Minister stood in a way that somewhat shielded the groom's mike (which fortunately happened during the bride's vows) but sometimes the wind went across the groom's chest and right across the lavalier. Besides me, the minister, the couple and the matron of honor, nobody else heard much of the rest of the ceremony let alone the vows. Does this seem like the kind of stuff you ran into over where you were shooting?

I used both Sound Forge's "noise print" first and the followed with the sub-200hz roll-offs as Claire and John described. It took some fiddling, but those techniques got rid of most of the really bad rumble so the voices could be understood. The audio was still noisy but was in keeping with what was seen in the video (hair and veils being blown in the "breeze", etc.). Considering that the guests who were there had trouble hear anything decipherable, everybody was satisfied with the resulting DVD.

Like Don, I have a contract provision that covers these kinds of issues. While Don uses a separate form for outdoor weddings, I use a standard provision in all of my contracts that basically tells people that we record the wedding that happens and cannot guarantee made-for-tv perfection.