audio editing

I was taping with two wireless mic's powered by 9 volts. they started to die towards the last few minutes of the shoot and now some of my audio sounds terrible. I was wondering if there were a way, other than having a fresh battery in the mic, to try to minimize the white noise sound that was recorded from the mics. I don't know if FCP has any type of filter that might help reduce the crappiness of the audio.

Most filters that can reduce background hiss from whatever source also eliminate the "s" sound from people's words.

When radio mics die, they do a lot of very nasty things. The background noise goes up, the mic volume goes down and the distortion goes way up.

Outside of that, they're fine.

I don't see anything you can do about any of those things except the volume. You can make everything louder.

You can pull the audio track into an actual audio editor and post the work by carefully editing each word in the dialog. That will suppress the hiss. You're stuck with the distortion.

Then you take up plumbing.

Sorry.

Koz

check out [proapptips.com]



David at Movies Rock in Toronto
[www.tofcpug.com]

i know that i can edit the track word by word, but with all of the time i'm using for my plumbing lessons, that is not an option. I was just curious if there were any filters that are not in final cut that i could buy, or what specific filter in final cut ( i assume you're talking about the "de-esser."

I'm building up to a small web site which isn't there yet, but I did some of the research:

Koz



Removing Sound Interference -- FCP Parametric Equalizer
[proapptips.com]

Hiss
[www.lafcpug.org]

Hum --Sound Soap
[www.lafcpug.org]

Wind Noise -- Sound Track Pro
[www.lafcpug.org]

Clicks and Pops
[www.lafcpug.org]

Overmodulation (Crunchy Loud) -- Waves Restoration Bundle
[www.lafcpug.org]

Audio Cleaner Program -- SoundSoap
[www.bias-inc.com]

Nice, Koz. Very useful.

- Loren
Today's FCP 5 keytip:
Set a Level keyframe with Command-Option K !

The FCP 5 KeyGuide?: a professional placemat.
Now available at KeyGuide Central:
www.neotrondesign.com

I will of course, post the information in plain text with no graphics and drive all the Mac people nuts.

Koz

You mean... you're NOT a Mac people?

- Loren
Today's FCP 5 keytip:
Set a Level keyframe with Command-Option K !

The FCP 5 KeyGuide?: a professional placemat.
Now available at KeyGuide Central:
www.neotrondesign.com

Koz:

A much better way to remove white (or, better, pink) noise is using the "Reduce Noise" filter in Soundtrack Pro.

While it won't make the noise go away, it will bring it down to the point you can hear the voices.

Though, I agree, the only way to really fix it is to replace the batteries before they die.

Hmmm, I should probably write an article about how to use it.

Larry
Your friendly, Apple-Certifed FCP trainer

i;d say Soundtrack Pro will fix all those problems, Koz, except the over-modulation.

no need for SoundSoap anymore.

while "reduce noise" can do miracles sometimes, it has a tendency to hit the voices, too.
esp if you're trying top pull out noise, which goes right across the human voice spectrum.

the EQ tools in STP are pretty friendly.

the optimal results will be had from a combination of EQ, noise removal, ducking, or gating, and possibly masking with another sound.

nick

<<<Hmmm, I should probably write an article about how to use it>>>

Batteries?

Koz

No, you young fool...!

A tutorial on how to remove noise using Soundtrack Pro.

Sheesh...!

Larry
Your friendly, Apple-Certifed FCP trainer

Soundtrack Pro rolls Soundsoap Pro functions into it, very cool. I have a KeyGuide coming for it very shortly!

- Loren
Today's FCP 5 keytip:
Set a Level keyframe with Command-Option K !

The FCP 5 KeyGuide?: a professional placemat.
Now available at KeyGuide Central:
www.neotrondesign.com

That is what I was planning on doing for my first video tutorial for my site (man Shane and CaptMench are really getting ahead of me there)



David at Movies Rock in Toronto
[www.tofcpug.com]

Never use long lasting batteries. For film and video work, buy the cheapest non-alkaline batteries. When they did, they die! Alkaline batteries die slowly and you think you're still recording good sound because you can hear it in your earphones, so you just crank up the volume. Therefore, always use the cheap standard batteries. Use them for a couple of hours and dump them in the garbage can. Put in a fresh pack and off you go. You'll also save money not buying those expensive batteries.