Cleaning up audio at DVinfo.net

Todd Westacott · March 19th, 2006, 05:32 PM

I have a question for the audio gurus on this board. In the following clip the audio quality is kind of poor and I amlooking for a way to clean it up a bit in Premiere. Does anyone know of any filters or effects which I can use to make it a bit cleaner?

http://www.visiondigitalstudios.com/Fathers%20Words.wmv

Peter Jefferson · March 19th, 2006, 11:25 PM

so u clipped a wireless mic on him and he was rasing his voice over the ambience and pretty mush shouted into the mic.

First of all to get good audio, u must advise whoever is using a wireless mic to pretend its not there. The high end plosives when hes talking have overdriven the mic (i noticed this as the ambient sound is actually very clear)

As the mic itslef is overdriven, nothing u can do within the camera AGC or teh mics low end cutoff would ever be able to fix AT THE TIME. So ensuring the user DOESNT overdrive the mic is imperitive.

Do u have a shotgun mic? I would recomend a shotgun for any table interviews, u can be 4-5 feet away and still get good audio without blowing out.

In this case, there is nothing u can really do.
In Soundforge, u can try a clipped peak restoration plugin (part of teh noise reduction plugin set from sonic foundry), but it will only run compression on the overdriven blown peaks. (which is everytime the old fella opens his mouth. )
U can try cutting out the mid frequencies so its not as "clippy" but then u wont have consistan audio, unless u mix some background noise from another part to fill in the frequencies ur cutting.

Its one thing to clean audio, its another thing to clean it enough and retain consistancy in freq range throughout the whole piece

In this case though, i would just leave it as it is, maybe drop levels down a bit, but theres not much u can do. Once ur source is blown out, its pretty much dead when it comes to tweakability.

If it was jsut general BG noise and the like, itd be a different story.

March 19th, 2006, 05:32 PM	#1
Todd Westacott New Boot Join Date: Feb 2006 Posts: 18	Cleaning up audio I have a question for the audio gurus on this board. In the following clip the audio quality is kind of poor and I amlooking for a way to clean it up a bit in Premiere. Does anyone know of any filters or effects which I can use to make it a bit cleaner? http://www.visiondigitalstudios.com/Fathers%20Words.wmv

March 19th, 2006, 11:25 PM	#2
Peter Jefferson Inner Circle Join Date: Apr 2003 Location: Aus Posts: 3,884	so u clipped a wireless mic on him and he was rasing his voice over the ambience and pretty mush shouted into the mic. First of all to get good audio, u must advise whoever is using a wireless mic to pretend its not there. The high end plosives when hes talking have overdriven the mic (i noticed this as the ambient sound is actually very clear) As the mic itslef is overdriven, nothing u can do within the camera AGC or teh mics low end cutoff would ever be able to fix AT THE TIME. So ensuring the user DOESNT overdrive the mic is imperitive. Do u have a shotgun mic? I would recomend a shotgun for any table interviews, u can be 4-5 feet away and still get good audio without blowing out. In this case, there is nothing u can really do. In Soundforge, u can try a clipped peak restoration plugin (part of teh noise reduction plugin set from sonic foundry), but it will only run compression on the overdriven blown peaks. (which is everytime the old fella opens his mouth. ) U can try cutting out the mid frequencies so its not as "clippy" but then u wont have consistan audio, unless u mix some background noise from another part to fill in the frequencies ur cutting. Its one thing to clean audio, its another thing to clean it enough and retain consistancy in freq range throughout the whole piece In this case though, i would just leave it as it is, maybe drop levels down a bit, but theres not much u can do. Once ur source is blown out, its pretty much dead when it comes to tweakability. If it was jsut general BG noise and the like, itd be a different story.