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HeyCori
Participant
January 10, 2017
Question

Need tips for removing "thump" and improving audio

  • January 10, 2017
  • 1 reply
  • 5512 views

Hi!  I don't know much about editing audio so I'm hoping someone with more experience can help me out.  During an interview, someone kept kicking the mic stand resulting in a loud thump.  You can hear it in the example below.

deb tim ORIGINAL by HeyCori | Hey Cori | Free Listening on SoundCloud

I used the Noise Reduction feature and captured one of the thumps (lowering the FFT to capture such a small portion).  Ran that.  Then I enhanced the male voice, enhanced the female voice, and turned up the DB slightly.  This is what I was left with.

deb tim TEST by HeyCori | Hey Cori | Free Listening on SoundCloud

Unfortunately, it sounds off, like it's hollow.  I was wondering if there was anything I could do to either the original file, or the new one, that would improve the quality?

Thanks.

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1 reply

SteveG_AudioMasters_
Community Expert
SteveG_AudioMasters_Community Expert
Community Expert
January 10, 2017

If there aren't too many of them, select each one carefully and use Favorites>Auto Heal on them - that's often quite good for thumps.

    ryclark
    ryclark
    Participating Frequently
    January 10, 2017

    They show up very well on the Spectral Frequency Display where you can use the Marquee or Lasso tools to select and delete or reduce the level of them. The Autoheal tool doesn't quite remove them in one pass. However the Sound Removal tool does work quite well if you select one of the thumps, use that for Learn Sound Model and then try the Remove "Ah" and "Um" Preset.

    H
    HeyCoriAuthor
    Participant
    January 12, 2017

    Sorry for the late reply.  I wasn't able to get back to this as fast as I thought I would.

    Thanks for the tips everyone.  I tried the auto heal and Remove Ah and Um preset but wasn't getting the results I wanted.  The preset reduced the sound creating a noticeable dip in the volume.  And without knowing more about audio editing, the tweaks necessary to get it right are a bit above my head.  And auto heal didn't reduce the thumps enough.  It also didn't help that there are so many interwoven with them speaking.

    So I went back to them original file and instead of using the Noise Reduction, I just used Enhance Male/Female voice with the hopes that it would drown out the thumps.  I think the end result is less hollow than before.

    deb ben TEST2 by HeyCori | Hey Cori | Free Listening on SoundCloud

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