Minimising specific frequencies

[PhotogCda]

I've got a piece of audio that was captured outdoors in a barnyard area.  It's an interview with a farmer and in a couple places, the birds (chickens & geese) get a bit excited and make quite a bit of noise.  Enough that it interferes with the dialogue.  Doesn't completely obscure the dialogue, but does compete with it.

I want to try to pull down the level of the birds and am wondering what the best way to do that may be.

I've opened the Spectral Frequency Display and I can see, where the birds are most evident, the frequencies bump up into the 7k to 15k range.  This is as I would expect. 

Would I be best to try to use a graphic equalizer and pull those frequencies down?  Or might I be better to split the stream using the Frequency Band Splitter and work on the specific frequencies that way?  Or is there another approach that may be better?

I'm not looking to eliminate the birds.  This isn't TV cop drama where anything is possible.  I just want to try to pull the levels down so that the dialogue isn't overpowered (as much).

Using Audition CC (11.1.1.3) on Win 7 Pro, if that matters.

Thanks.

[ryclark]

If there is a bit of bird racket without speech over it you could try the Sound Remover effect using the birds only bit to Learn Sound Model.

Use the Sound Remover effect |

[SteveG_AudioMasters_]

Hmm... is the recording stereo or mono?

[PhotogCda]

Mono.

[PhotogCda]

There may be.  I'm not sure the sample would be long enough for the learn process to work.  I'll look into it. 

The concern, obviously, is that anything that's done to try to reduce the bird clatter is going to impact dialogue as well because very little sound is so isolated in a specific frequency.  Normal voices have a range.  My goal is to find a way to do as much as I can with the birds, while impacting the voice dialogue as little as possible. 

[PhotogCda]

Digging into this further, I think Audition may not be the best approach.  At least not in this case and not without spending significant time.  Tried Sound Remover and that didn't work well.  Worked with EQ, FFT, Parametric EQ and noise reduction and nothing really gave me a good result.  I could tone down the birds, but it also pulled down the higher end of the dialogue making everything sound flat. 

I started looking into the Essential Sound panel of Pr, and that seems to be giving me the best result.  Using the Balanced Male Voice preset, then adjusting Dynamics and EQ (Subtle Boost, Male preset) is giving me a decent result.  It's boosting the dialogue enough that the bird sounds, while still evident, aren't competing as much with the dialogue now.  Downside is it pushes up some wind noise, but I can probably take care of that with noise reduction.  The dialogue, with this approach, retains its range and crispness.

[ryclark]

PhotogCda  wrote

Digging into this further, I think Audition may not be the best approach.  At least not in this case and not without spending significant time. 

Normally Audition can do anything with audio that Premiere can do but usually much better. But I agree that it might take a bit longer but would generally achieve better results. But as long as you are happy with the results that's all that matters. You could always post a clip of the offending audio via Dropbox or Google Drive for one of us to have a look at if you would like further suggestions.

[PhotogCda]

Agreed.  It's the time that's the issue, really.  It could take me days to find the right combination of effects/settings in Audition. 

[paulfigg]

iZotope RX 7 ADV. Dialogue Isolate

-paul.

@produceNewMedia