Muffled Audio Issue

[Jeggli]

I have this audio that I recorded that I'm trying to figure out how to clean up. I recorded it on a mic that plugs into my phone, but there were so issues with the recording so I had to use the audio from my DSLR.

I've already cut up the audio in premiere to have the correct timing that I want for my video and then exported the who audio clip with the highest quality export that I can do.

The issue is that the audio sounds muffled or like it's a has an echo to it. I'm looking to learn how to clean up the audio so it sound at least somewhat normal.

Here's a link to the test video that I uploaded to youtube: Grey Test 6 - YouTube

Is there a place where I can upload the audio by itself so that someone can take a look at it?

[ryclark · Accepted solution]

The main problem with your interview is that it was recorded with the mic too far from the interviewee. Was it recorded using the onboard camera mic?

Unfortunately there is not much you can do to clean it up. Once there is too much room acoustic on the recording it is virtually impossible to remove it successfully without compromising the audio quality even more. Possibly a little EQ to raise the upper frequency rang might make it a little bit clearer. But it will never sound correct unless recorded properly in the first place either with a tie clip mic on the interviewee or a much better mic suspended over head just out of shot.

[Jeggli]

I see what you're saying. I had a Rode wired lav mic going on the interviewee that ran into my cell phone. It had a malfunction to where I had to splice in the audio from my D5300's onboard mic to make it sound better. There was something about the mixture of the two that seemed to give a better sound. The audio that you hear in that video is a combination of the D5300 mic, the wired lav mic, and a decent amount of effects from Audition. The version that you heard sounds much better than the original for sure. My issue is that I have little to no experience with audio editing besides capturing a noise print and erasing that noise from the entire clip.

I'm going to look up some youtube videos about raising the upper frequency rang to see if that can fix at least part of the issue.

All this cemented in my head that I need to get a real audio setup that goes into something like an H6. Something that I can monitor with headphones right there on the spot.

Thank you for your help. Much appreciated.

[ryclark]

Yes it is always good to monitor the audio whilst you are recording video especially if it is an important one time interview. A better external recorder like the Zoom would be ideal. It's a pity that such a high class camera doesn't provide you with a simple external mic input to plug the lavalier into.

Edit. It appears that it does have a 3.5mm mic input jack but no direct headphone out to monitor whether it is recording audio properly. So an good external recorder is probably still essential for interview work I'm afraid.

[Jeggli]

ryclark​ I'm new to adobe forums. Is there a place that I can upload the original audio file on this site so that you can hear it and let me know if you think it was the right choice to merge the camera audio with the mic? Or maybe if you here it you'll know if a simple way to fix the issue that I have.

[emmrecs]

Not ryclark but...

No, there is no way to upload audio files to the Adobe Audio Editor forum; such files are not allowed!!.

Your only way to allow others to hear your files is to post it/them to an external file service, like Google Drive or Dropbox or similar (I use pCloud) and then post the download link in this forum

[Jeggli]

emmrecs​ ryclark Thank you! If either of you want to see the actual file, let me know.

[emmrecs]

As I said before, your only option is to post a short .wav format extract of it, which clearly shows the problem, to a file sharing site and post the download link here.

[Jeggli]

emmrecs​ I created a shorter version that has the issues in the dropbox. It's called Grey_01.wav

[ryclark]

If you have the very latest public release of Audition CC 12.0 there is now a new DeReverb effect that you could try on your echoey interview. It might make some improvement but could equally as well make it worse. So update and give it a try.

Applying noise reduction techniques and restoration effects

[Jeggli]

ryclark I tried DeReverb and and helped a lot. Thank you! This is what I was looking for: Audio Before & After - YouTube