Major Audio Problem... Could use some assistance at DVinfo.net

Scott May · July 18th, 2007, 11:02 PM

First I must say thank you to many of you who have unknowingly assisted me on these boards. I have gotten so much information from many of you by reading your advice to others.

Now I'm hoping for some specific advice. I filmed my first wedding for my cousin and purchased an I-River IFP-899. I read a lot of advice upfront saying to make sure you catch the audio with a voice recorder as a back up. Which I tried to do. The problem is that because of the limited budget I chose to use it not as a back up but as my primary. My back ups were the audio from my two camera's. At the rehearsal everything went fine. But of course I messed up the wedding and somehow it didn't record. Now all I have that is a complete audio of the ceremony is my back up camera that was running the whole time, but was located behind the preacher/speakers and didn't have a seperate decent microphone.

So my question now is, can anyone assist me with audio editing? I have 35 minutes of audio that I want to edit to try and remove some of the background noise and bring down the "openess" feeling that a camera mic picks up in a large room. Since it is behind the preacher, (and speakers) it is almost not audible and I just don't know what I'm doing well enough with Goldwave to improve it.

If anyone can assist me, I can send them a clip of the audio to work with and then hopefully give me advice on how to fix the rest of it myself. Thanks again in advice.

Richard Wakefield · July 19th, 2007, 05:50 AM

do you have access to CoolEditPro/Adobe Audition at all?

Cool Edit Pro:
You would go to Transform-Noise Reduction, then highlight a decent section of your audio that is just background noise/hiss. Then save this selection as a profile. Then highlight your entire audio file, and use 'noise reduction' to 'subtract' a chosen percentage of your profile. (it would sound unnatural to delete 100%)
So in otherwords, you would be removing the background noise but keep the peaks of the spoken parts.

Now you will want to play around with EQ levels in real-time to bring out the spoken parts.
You'll be pleasantly surprised how good the results will be.

If this all sounds baffling, feel free to email me a small mp3, to see if i can help out....trouble is i'm ultra-busy right now, but i'll see what i can do.

Steve House · July 19th, 2007, 07:03 AM

Scott, the reality is that there isn't going to be a lot you can do about it. Some fiddling with equalization and bringing up the levels can help make it more understandable but that hollow sound of room reverb is simply not fixable. The only thing you can do is learn from your mistakes and make sure you have your ducks in order for the next event you shoot.

Brendan Donohue · July 19th, 2007, 11:26 AM

send me a snippet of the audio...preferably the vows or whatnot...I've got a few nice eq and filter plug ins in SONAR that might be able to bring out the dialogue as mush as possible..obviously I won't know till i hear it...

pureformmedia@yahoo.com

~brendan

Terry Esslinger · July 20th, 2007, 07:10 PM

[QUOTE= AS MUSH AS POSSIBLE [/QUOTE]

Probably isnt what he wants:>)

July 18th, 2007, 11:02 PM	#1
Scott May Tourist Join Date: Oct 2006 Location: Atlanta, GA Posts: 1	Major Audio Problem... Could use some assistance First I must say thank you to many of you who have unknowingly assisted me on these boards. I have gotten so much information from many of you by reading your advice to others. Now I'm hoping for some specific advice. I filmed my first wedding for my cousin and purchased an I-River IFP-899. I read a lot of advice upfront saying to make sure you catch the audio with a voice recorder as a back up. Which I tried to do. The problem is that because of the limited budget I chose to use it not as a back up but as my primary. My back ups were the audio from my two camera's. At the rehearsal everything went fine. But of course I messed up the wedding and somehow it didn't record. Now all I have that is a complete audio of the ceremony is my back up camera that was running the whole time, but was located behind the preacher/speakers and didn't have a seperate decent microphone. So my question now is, can anyone assist me with audio editing? I have 35 minutes of audio that I want to edit to try and remove some of the background noise and bring down the "openess" feeling that a camera mic picks up in a large room. Since it is behind the preacher, (and speakers) it is almost not audible and I just don't know what I'm doing well enough with Goldwave to improve it. If anyone can assist me, I can send them a clip of the audio to work with and then hopefully give me advice on how to fix the rest of it myself. Thanks again in advice.

July 19th, 2007, 07:03 AM	#3
Steve House Inner Circle Join Date: Mar 2005 Location: Hamilton, Ontario, Canada Posts: 5,742	Scott, the reality is that there isn't going to be a lot you can do about it. Some fiddling with equalization and bringing up the levels can help make it more understandable but that hollow sound of room reverb is simply not fixable. The only thing you can do is learn from your mistakes and make sure you have your ducks in order for the next event you shoot. __________________ Good news, Cousins! This week's chocolate ration is 15 grams!

July 20th, 2007, 07:10 PM	#5
Terry Esslinger Major Player Join Date: Oct 2002 Location: Sacramento, Elk Grove. Calif Posts: 306	[QUOTE= AS MUSH AS POSSIBLE [/QUOTE] Probably isnt what he wants:>) __________________ Puttin the wet stuff on the red stuff!

July 19th, 2007, 05:50 AM	#2
Richard Wakefield Major Player Join Date: Feb 2006 Location: Surrey, UK Posts: 680	do you have access to CoolEditPro/Adobe Audition at all? Cool Edit Pro: You would go to Transform-Noise Reduction, then highlight a decent section of your audio that is just background noise/hiss. Then save this selection as a profile. Then highlight your entire audio file, and use 'noise reduction' to 'subtract' a chosen percentage of your profile. (it would sound unnatural to delete 100%) So in otherwords, you would be removing the background noise but keep the peaks of the spoken parts. Now you will want to play around with EQ levels in real-time to bring out the spoken parts. You'll be pleasantly surprised how good the results will be. If this all sounds baffling, feel free to email me a small mp3, to see if i can help out....trouble is i'm ultra-busy right now, but i'll see what i can do.

July 19th, 2007, 11:26 AM	#4
Brendan Donohue Regular Crew Join Date: Jun 2007 Location: Nashville, TN Posts: 161	send me a snippet of the audio...preferably the vows or whatnot...I've got a few nice eq and filter plug ins in SONAR that might be able to bring out the dialogue as mush as possible..obviously I won't know till i hear it... pureformmedia@yahoo.com ~brendan