Filtering Camera Noise

Anyone know the best way to get rid of camera noise in the background. I've tried several different audio filters but I can't nail down exactly what frequency the noise is and so far everything I've tried distorts the actor's voice too much. Is there some sort of meter plug in which would tell me what frequency the camera noise is?

I'm using FCP 4.5.

<<<camera noise in the background.>>>

What sort of camera and what sort of noise? If you're taping right next to a noisy movie camera there's no hope. Those things have sound energy all over the place.

Koz

It was an old 16 Arri BL, and the real problem is that the actor's voice is too low so when I increase the volume the camera noise is evident.

Eric:

Can you send me a short sound clip in the .aiff format? I'd like to check it out.

tc

tc I tried but it bounced back. It was just a 1.9 MB file.

Don't know why...
can you post it somewhere?

Sorry for the delay. I went to see Star Wars. Try this: [fineartscenter.net]

Eric:

How'd you like Sith?

I've "overcleaned" it a bit, just to show what's possible- I may have done some harm to the background voices (a TV or something? Noisy neighbors?). There's a wee bit of aliasing, too, since I went heavy handed with the processing.

The cam noise is not all that terrible- in the olden days, when Koz and I were kings, we used the Dolby Cat. 43 to clean up camera noise like this.

The file is posted here:

[www.magneticoblivion.com]

Still don't know what's up with my email...it should've come through.

This file was processed through the TCWorks program Spark XL, using their DeNoise Plug-in. I did nothing more than select a spot containing the noise alone, press the learn button, then dial in the NR amount and the tweak the bias control just a touch. NR was around -12 or so. If I was doing it to a whole show, it'd take quite awhile to do properly, and there would also be a chance to do some forensic EQ, at the same time.

Though I haven't used a recent version of SoundSoap, my guess is you could do something similar in SS Pro to get the results I did.

How's that? Let me know what you think.

tc

<<[fineartscenter.net];

The talent is still much louder than the junk in the background. This sounds to me like a job for a graceful noise gate. Yes, No?

Koz

Two postings passing in the night. Yes, that's the idea.

Koz

tc that sounds awesome. Looks like a pretty pricey plug-in though. $375 just to rent the license? Is that right?

Koz with some serious work I might be able to make the noise gate filter work but so far it's making the vocals sound too hollow.

I liked Sith a lot. I think it's definitely the best of the last three. I didn't totally buy Aniken's reason for going to the dark side though and the final battle with OB1 dragged on way too long considering we all knew how it would turn out. I also didn't like the effects in that scene too much, although I think overall the effects look much better in this film than the last two. I did enjoy the comparisons to current events, intentional or not.

Yeah- when I got Spark it was round about 700 bux or so. I don't think they even still make it, do they?

You might try one of those other fine products...

Gates, yeah...hmm. Well the problem with gates, graceful or otherwise, is they are indescriminate.

They slam shut on all sounds and all freq's, below threshold-
So you end up losing all the on-set "foley", and you have to replace it. You also get unnatural sounding ambience (reverbs) tails on the dialog, forcing you to mess it up again to make it play naturally...

DeNoise, Sound Soap, and I'd be willing to bet SoundTrack Pro de-noisers (but I don't know for sure) use a combination of smart filtering (hence the learning process I mentioned previously) and some kind of downward expander to smooth out the way the filtering works on the file. In the Spark implementation, the controls allow you to vary the amount of NR, and sort of choose how badly you mess up things below threshold. It's not magical, but it works pretty well.

Given enough time, a thousand monkeys with binary typewriters could fix it for you...That's alotta monkey chow...
So I'd spring for the software.

tc

Sound Soap. I've had students with exactly the same problem and it was fixed entirely with SS. that app is made for this ind of strady-state noise. You don't even need to do much tweaking.

good luck.

hd

HD, Academic Superstore has Sound Soap 2 for 69.99. Will that work or will I need Sound Soap Pro (which is 399)?

eric,

if you've solved your problem, don't read further . if not, please do.

You can get waves (waves.com) restoration bundle for 15 days to check out. after that, you'll have to pay for it to use. Do your work within this time. It's marvelous and costs 1000 bucks. It has 4 plugs, of which you should use X-Noise. X-noise learns the sound that should be eliminated, and eliminates it (or part of it). But don't expect wonders. Those frequences that are also in the voice spectrum will also disappear. Using it too heavily, will make voice sound hollow.
Anyway, X-noise has saved a lot of bad recordings. If you can't do it by yourself, ask your sound editor for advice. He has the answers and will surely do a better job than you.

diBasa

I have used the original version of the lower end SoundSoap1 which worked fine. I think SS pro is very controllable but has so many controls it can be confusing. please look at Bias' website for more details before you buy.

hd

I haven't completely solved the problem. I used the noise gate filter which makes it better but it doesn't sound as good as tc's version.

I think I'll try that Sound Soap program based on what hd and tc have said about it. For $69 bucks it's worth a shot.

eric,
before you lay out the cash, for a free demo you might try x-noise and see. free - even a demo - always gets my attention. the only problem with apps like Sound Soap is that has limited usefulness - you shouldn't need it often. if you do, you should either hire a location audio guy, get better equipment, or find another line of work.

have you seen this:

[www.kenstone.net]

also, know that i had a poorly recorded video file that had very high frequency steady-state noise that SS couldn't touch without screwing up the audio even worse than it was. i ended up using a series of FCP native audio filters which did as good a job as could be done. cost: free.

one last thing: have you exported and played with the file in Peak DV? that is an audio editing app that should have come with FCP. I've used it to great effect on prpblem audio, and I like it mucho. IMO the SuperFreq plugin is a stellar EQ. cost: none.

as I said, I know students who have camera noise issues who've used SS and it worked beautifully.

but i see that SS2 now works from within FCP. a HUGE advange over the old version; QT files had to be exported/edited/imported and was destructive in its editing.

hmm, i think I may update.

hd