Whats the best way to reduce wind in audio?

[Ryan Borrego]

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.

[Don Bloom]

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

[Ryan Borrego]

Thanks a lot! Ill give that a try!

[Chris Barcellos]

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.

[Philip Howells]

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.

[Alan Melville]

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

[Don Bloom]

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.

[Chris Harding]

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

[Don Bloom]

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.

[Denny Lajeunesse]

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[Craig Terott]

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

[Alan Melville]

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

[Alan Melville]

Originally Posted by Chris Harding

"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

[Denny Lajeunesse]

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!

[Chris Harding]

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