Removing constant background noise

[JohnnyAir]

We will be doing a lot of these videos of guys riding efoils.  The noise in this sample is typical of what we can expect.  It's filmed with a Hero 9 GoPro.  In this instance the camera is mounted on the helmet.

It's important that we hear the rider talking.  I guess that we don't want to remove the noise of the efoil completely but definitely a lot quieter than straight out of the camera.

We are using Premiere Pro and Audition 2022.  Best to consider me a beginner.  I have tried via tutorials to get this right but not successful as yet.  Any suggestions please?  Sample is attached.

[SteveG_AudioMasters_ · Accepted solution]

It's not going to be so easy to get an acceptable result from this, because it's not a constant noise at all - which is probably why you are having difficulties with it. Anyway, that rules out the best NR solution, as it really does only work with truly constant noise. The only other tool that improves it a little (and you have to experiment a lot) is the Adaptive NR, which works better with this sort of noise, but still doesn't really give you a 'good' result.

I'll say this quietly here, but there's a good chance that iZotope's RX NR system might do a better job of this - it's been developed quite a bit in this particular direction. Really though, if you want to get a good result from this particular situation, you'd be much better off putting a waterproof radio mic (or local recorder) on the rider much closer to the mouth, and post-syncing it. The GoPro is never going to be in the right place to do a good sound capture, even if it's helmet mounted.

[JohnnyAir]

Valuable advice there Steve.  I've started looking at the waterproof radio mics.  Thank you.

[EuanWilliamson · Accepted solution]

Hi Johnny, those efoils look great fun !! I used to surf 40 years ago and I'd love to try one of these 🙂

As to your question. Without doubt, the best answer is to invest in an external mic for your GoPro.

You should be able to snake it into the helmets and nearer the riders mouth.

I'm thinking you should still get reasonable pick up of the external sounds

- indeed just like the rider will hear.

Trying to pull the voice out of the sample you posted and make it useful would be near impossible.

It's not something Audition can do.

The only other option would be to find some AI powered audio processor app or software.

Attached is the sort of result you could get.

[JohnnyAir]

That's a massive improvement Euan.  In fact that is pretty much a totally acceptable outcome for our purposes. Was this created using an "AI powered audio processor" 🙂 ?

Yes the efoils are absolute magic; to glide a metre above the water like that.  40 years eh?  I bet you could still do it.

Thanks so much for this.

[EuanWilliamson]

You're most welcome.

A lot of us who help out like @SteveG_AudioMasters_ and myself are aware of and use

other tools/ apps to get the job done.

Given the rate of Adobe development I don;t think it will be long til they have this in

Audition or Premier Pro.

In this case I threw your video into Final Cut Pro. The lastest version has a new ML tool

called voice isolation. The sample was at 60% to keep some of the other audio.

At 100 % it was pretty much just the voice.