Fixing Terrible Interview Audio in Audition

[captain_astronaut]

Hi there. I received some interviews that were badly recorded, and was wondering how I could make them sound the best they can be? I took a stab at by following some Youtube tutorials, and while slightly improved, it still sounds awful. I'm gonna include the original and the audition version so you can hear the difference. I'm hoping someone can suggest a way to make it even better, or at least tell me to abandon all hope.

https://vimeo.com/219175066/384db2cf4fhttps://vimeo.com/219175066/384db2cf4f

Eric.Int.audition_pass on Vimeo

Thanks in advance

[stefan_gru]

Watch the 4th video on this page: Remove noise from audio files with Audition

The solution is probably to capture a noise print of the room tone (I hope you recorded 10 sec. of silence before the person spoke) and then you can remove that from the interview audio.

[stefan_gru]

Captain_Astronaut: I did a test using your sample clip. I began in Premiere Pro and then right-clicked the clip and chose Edit Clip in Adobe Audition. There I attempted to select a relatively quiet section of audio (in Audition), captured the noise print (Effects > Noise Reduction > Capture Noise Print), and then ran the Noise Reduction process. Here is a before and after comparison:

Play with the Noise Reduction slider till you like what you hear:

[captain_astronaut]

Cool. Now is there a way to add something to his voice so he doesn't sound like he's being interviewed in a bathroom?

Thanks for your help

[SteveG_AudioMasters_]

captain_astronaut  wrote

Now is there a way to add something to his voice so he doesn't sound like he's being interviewed in a bathroom?

Unfortunately that is not an addition you need, but a subtraction. What you have there is all the first reflections from the walls of the room you were in, and anybody who manages to create a plugin to remove those is going to make a fortune! The problem is that these are now a part of the 'sound' of the voice, only they aren't, really - they occur within milliseconds after words are uttered, and generally sit over the top of the following word, so anything you do to remove the content of them screws up the overall sound more than just leaving them as they are.

The fix that works best involves a bit of work, and getting the person concerned to revoice his answers using a better, closer mic. This as it stands never fits perfectly, but there's a tool in the Clip menu in Audition called Automatic Speech Alignment that can fix that. This takes the word timing from your original video, and matches the revoiced track to this - and it can work pretty well. Best of all, it doesn't involve a re-shoot...

[stefan_gru]

Sounds like good ol' ADR, which is used all the time in narrative films: Afraid of Recording ADR? Don't Be! This Sound Tutorial Will Show You How

I imagine that ADR is not (often?) used in documentaries because docs need to be as "true" or "authentic" as possible. I think documentary audiences are much more forgiving of suboptimal audio, jump cuts, etc. than audiences of narrative films.

[SteveG_AudioMasters_]

https://forums.adobe.com/people/Stefan+Gruenwedel  wrote

I imagine that ADR is not (often?) used in documentaries because docs need to be as "true" or "authentic" as possible. I think documentary audiences are much more forgiving of suboptimal audio, jump cuts, etc. than audiences of narrative films.

I think it's used more often than you might realise. It's become more prevalent, partly because the tools are available to do it easily, and partly because many documentary crews are now rather cut back for economical reasons - and of course it's the most important part (ie, the sound) that suffers. Pictures without sound don't mean much, but sound without pictures often gets you much more of a clue about what's going on...