Making the best of a bad job

J

jimihey

New member
Long time no post chaps, sorry.
Wee problem.

My bro and I are engaged in recording and writing music to accompany recorded spoken word.
The music bit is kind of "what we do" (so no great problems there..which can't be fixed by rehearsal and scales!!)

The problem is the digital audio "spoken tracks".
Recorded on a minidisc, by a novice, with a poor mic.
The sound is buried in hiss and hum and rumble and just about every problem you can imagine.
I was listening to mix down the other day and the sheer Hisss factor is just...to my ears unlistenable.
the difference between the music and when the speach occurs is a real wrench.
Ya know..tinkle tinkle SHHHHHHHHHHH tinkle. mmmmmmble shhhhhh!

We have tried sound soap it makes a great job of making a real wierd sound, lots of swirl.

Ive tried compression, normalising, EQ.
Is there anything else??
Anybody else had this prob?

This is one of these nightmares where you're comissioned for some work, relying on someone elses work and then feeling your compromising on the end point.

Any ideas chaps

All the best

Jimi
 
That sucks. I would try to get them to rerecord it and tell them the problems. Failing that-

Use a High Pass filter to get rid of rumble. Probably around 125-200hz.

Compression will just amplify any background noise. You might try expanding to seperate the voice from the noise floor. Then add a bit of limiting to tighten up the voice.

Noise reduction can work in small doses. Play with the settings until you get the maximum amount of hiss removal with the least amount of swirly artifacts. It just takes a lot of trail and error until you find the right settings.

When in doubt make it weird. If it is acceptable to the client you might try adding some effects to the voice or overall production. If you do a 'telephone voice' type effect on the spoken word it will help mask and maybe justify the horrible quality.
 
yuck. sounds like unless you can re-record, you're just gonna be looking at an exercise in turd-polishing. :D

in the turd polishing realm, i agree with Tex--try a highpass filter first to get rid of the rumble. then do noise reduction on it.

the trick with NR is many, many passes, removing very little each time. you can "do it" with only 1 or 2 passes, but you'll hear all kindsa artifacts.

the other "trick" with NR is that you need to monitor the "noise removed" on each pass to make sure you're not pulling out too much (or any) "good" audio.


good luck!
 
Thanks guys

The whole sorry affair is that the initial recordings were of specific events that were unique to the time and place.

I think my main frustration is that client had an idea, did the groundwork without seeking advice of any kind then presents the results to ourselves as a "make this epic" scenario.

Turd polishing is indeed what this is going to be about.

The issues it raised with me..and perhaps for folk starting thier own projects is
1. The pitfalls of getting invoved in a half done piece of work..not easy
2.People planning similar projects should maybe consult with those they intend to involve in later stages earlier
3. Even digital technology can't entirely clean up a garbage recording.

By the I'm going to try a few passes of clean up.
and.....(expansion...of course...doh!)

Jimi
 
jimihey, If you decide to proceed with the project in its current form and become a noise-reduction expert you might try the Virtos demo of DeNoiser:

http://www.virtos-audio.com/

I have the 'Noise Wizard' which includes a declicker and a couple of other things. The DeNoiser is nice and will make it sound better but isn't magic. It has a noise print like many other denoisers or you can set a slope and a threshold to give you that 'downward expander' kind of NR - it sounds better than that but reminds me of it a bit.

Other than trying Waves de-noisers which I don't have the Virtos sounds good to me.

I just mention this as an option in case you decide to move forward. I think you already know that the final product probably won't be what your client likes or something you would put your name on. :)

Good luck,
kylen
 
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