Audio clean-up: rain noise
 

I am editing together a wedding video using footage shot by someone else.

The footage was initially in .MOD format. When I finally realised that this was mpeg2 and I rerendered to DV/AVI, I couldn't believe the performance improvement in Vegas!

But now, I am dealling with some serious rain-noise problems in the audio. I think that camera was being held under and umbrella, so the rain noise is comparabel to the crackling of a fire.

My question: what would be the best way to try and reduce this noise. I am not an audiophile, so I have not done any serious analysis work on this problem. I initially tried using the default track effects (noise gate, EQ and compressor), and had a little success there, but I imagine the real solution may lie in identifying "rain drop/pock" frequencies and attempted to minimise them.

What do people suggest?

All help greatly appreciated.

Ciao,

marks

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Vegas 7.0e/SF 8.0/AMD64 3500+

Do you need the audio from the camera? Or can you just put music ontop... :)

Rain noise consists of a wide range of frequencies and varying levels. It will be virtually impossible to fix this.

For a good deal of it I can fudge out the rain, but there are a couple of segments where poems are read and vows are spoken - really want to keep those.

I realise that it can't be fully removed, but if I can reduce its impact.

I'll fiddle about and see what I can do.

Many thanks,

marks

Yup. Garbage In = Garbage Out.

You cant take out a broad band of sound.

Download the demo from GoldWave.com and try out its noise reduction. As mentioned, rain is tough, but it's worth a shot...

Thanks Jon,

I'll give the goldwave product a go.

Appreciate the suggestion.

marks

Try Audacity

I haven't used Audacity, but GoldWave is very good. It has a very liberal demo policy, and only costs $50. I recently purchased Sound Forge 9, and to be honest, I think GoldWave's noise reduction compares favorably with SF9's NR. I keep using SF9 though, just because it cost more. Silly me! (I should really do a head to head test next time I have a tough NR job.)

Audacity is a free program, you will have to play with the noise removal settings, but it does do it.