Trying to Clean Up Video Sound

I got some cellphone video of our recent performance that I'd like to edit to use for promotion. The audio has that tubby sound and some bar conversation intrudes from around the videographer, all of which is more than I can address with EQ.

Any particular software you can suggest? Thanks.

[Bob Womack]

I do this for a living, like every day, so perhaps I can help.

There are some plug-ins that will help part of it it. First, to reduce room tone, try iZotope De-Noiser or Dialog De-Noiser. Room tone is the air conditioning and the refrigerator compressors, the steady-state noise in the background. Basically, these plug-ins work on the old post-production trick of looping a small chunk of room tone, reversing its phase, and blending it back in so that it reduces just the room tone. With De-Noiser you literally find a background chunk with nothing except the noise of the room, loop it, learn it, and use it to cancel out the room tone.

Next you've got reverb. I use iZotope De-Noiser. You adjust the reverb length of the room and then adjust a four-band expansion system to reduce reverb where it exists in the background spectrum. Ah, but it sucks the life out of a music recording, you say. Here's the secret: You need to tastefully blend in a tiny amount of controlled, artificial reverb to replace the polluted natural reverb once you suck it out.

And now we approach the hardest problem to deal with: background conversation. Why is it hardest? Because the foreground source and background source lie in the very same frequency spectrum. This is why film and TV directors employ actors as extras in scenes where there are people visibly talking in the background of a scene. They put them in the background of the shot and say, "Act like you are having a conversation but don't say a word!" You can always add canned background chat back in but it is very difficult to remove. This type of cleanup is where you get to a very artistic side of my job. There are a number of way to try to deal with it. Some work, some don't, sometimes they work, sometimes they don't. You can try using De-Noiser slightly differently. First, crank the "Reduction" fader all the way to the minimum setting. Then, if you can find a place where the only sound is the background conversation you can "learn" that sound. Now try raising the Reduction fader a little at a time and see if the background conversation begins to be minimized without causing artifacts in the foreground program.

I'll be honest: The type of job that takes the most skill in my work is taking truly horrid audio and cleaning it up until it is just poor. Despite the fact that it requires all my skill, it often brings few or no kudos from my clients because they are embarrassed and disappointed that they didn't collect good audio in the first place. These kinds of jobs often require a stacked combination of different techniques and tools, all applied skillfully and with taste.

I hope there is something in there that helps.

Bob

Thanks, Bob, for taking the time to provide such a comprehensive response. It is definitely helpful.

[Ty Ford]

The "reshoot filter" is your best bet.

Regards,

Ty Ford

[Mr. Jelly]

Mostly it sounds like a waste of time. Move on. Plan ahead and record it better next time.

I will not work on things like this unless no one will hear it. Then it's a fast and dirty process because you just can't polish a turd. It's just a mess that keeps getting worse.

Originally Posted by Mr. Jelly

Mostly it sounds like a waste of time. Move on. Plan ahead and record it better next time.

I will not work on things like this unless no one will hear it. Then it's a fast and dirty process because you just can't polish a turd. It's just a mess that keeps getting worse.

We got a cell phone video of a recent performance in a bar so there's lots of ambient noise I wouldn't mind attenuating. I tried to tell everybody to shut up but they just wouldn't listen.

[muscmp]

Originally Posted by A-Mac

We got a cell phone video of a recent performance in a bar so there's lots of ambient noise I wouldn't mind attenuating. I tried to tell everybody to shut up but they just wouldn't listen.

perhaps you should have explained prior to the event that you would be recording and you would like to have them be perfectly quiet with no noise(in a bar??). i think the "shut up" part probably turned them the other way.

play music!

[KevWind]

Originally Posted by A-Mac

We got a cell phone video of a recent performance in a bar so there's lots of ambient noise I wouldn't mind attenuating. I tried to tell everybody to shut up but they just wouldn't listen.

Besides the few things Bob mentioned to try. I think what people are saying it is probably the most difficult task in mixing and often impossible to do with good results . Because the smoke is already out of the bottle ( so to speak) . Trying to record live music audio from out in the room particularly in a noisy room like a bar, seldom if ever yields decent results because of the inherent background noise that gets recorded into audio and the fact that much of it is in the same frequency range as the music you want to hear. Because the more room noise you remove usually you are also removing that same amount of music .

In other words going forward while shooting video from out in the room is fine recording audio from there is never a good idea.

If this video is that important to salvage I believe you can get scaled down version of isotopes RX which I think has the programs Bob was mentioning and some others as well, for about $ 250 dollars
Which I think is a great tool for anyone doing acoustic recording , But for this particular situation I would guess even with Isotope RX. you have may be a 10 or 15 % chance of acceptable results .

Originally Posted by KevWind

Besides the few things Bob mentioned to try. I think what people are saying it is probably the most difficult task in mixing and often impossible to do with good results . Because the smoke is already out of the bottle ( so to speak) . Trying to record live music audio from out in the room particularly in a noisy room like a bar, seldom if ever yields decent results because of the inherent background noise that gets recorded into audio and the fact that much of it is in the same frequency range as the music you want to hear. Because the more room noise you remove usually you are also removing that same amount of music .

In other words going forward while shooting video from out in the room is fine recording audio from there is never a good idea.

If this video is that important to salvage I believe you can get scaled down version of isotopes RX which I think has the programs Bob was mentioning and some others as well, for about $ 250 dollars
Which I think is a great tool for anyone doing acoustic recording , But for this particular situation I would guess even with Isotope RX. you have may be a 10 or 15 % chance of acceptable results .

Thanks, Kev, that is also good info. I suspect I'll just use what I have by editing short, unencumbered clips of the three songs together to use for promotion. The crowd noise does kind of add to the whole thing once I've applied a little EQ.

Originally Posted by muscmp

perhaps you should have explained prior to the event that you would be recording and you would like to have them be perfectly quiet with no noise(in a bar??). i think the "shut up" part probably turned them the other way.

That part of my reply was in jest.

[JohnDWilliams]

Originally Posted by KevWind

If this video is that important to salvage I believe you can get scaled down version of isotopes RX which I think has the programs Bob was mentioning and some others as well, for about $ 250 dollars

Which I think is a great tool for anyone doing acoustic recording , But for this particular situation I would guess even with Isotope RX. you have may be a 10 or 15 % chance of acceptable results .

Audacity is free and has a noise reduction "effect". That's an easy and cheap way to experiment with the technique.

[rockabilly69]

Originally Posted by Bob Womack

I'll be honest: The type of job that takes the most skill in my work is taking truly horrid audio and cleaning it up until it is just poor. Bob

Been there, and know exactly what you are talking about. It brings to mind the classic "polishing a turd"