Trouble reducing outside noise. Actor sounds too echoey.

[Chrisflashhelp]

Hi. I'm not sure how to remove the white noise outside sounds from my audio. I selected the area in between the actors voice in Audition (which is just solid snow from red to purple) and either nothing happens because the removal level is too low OR I remove too much and the actor sound like they are in a concert hall instead of on an outdoor tennis court! Is there a trick to this?

I have uploaded my two audio files onto dropbox if you'd like to listen:

https://www.dropbox.com/sh/dykygee1x0nzb7p/AABn76fcLKq5DA3vPguvYia8a?dl=0

If you can let me know what steps to use (dumb it down) then I can apply it to other files also. I'd appreciate anyone's expertise!

[SteveG_AudioMasters_ · Accepted solution]

Reducing the hiss somewhat would be possible, but you'd still be left with a terrible-sounding file, as the hiss will have drowned out any ambience at all. Essentially this is unfixable.

The original sounds as though there is something seriously wrong with the recording - this sounds like equipment failure, almost. How did you make it?

[Chrisflashhelp]

Hi Steve,

You helped me remove the singing bugs from my files, so thanks for that. I agree these are terrible sounding files. I recorded them 3 or 4 years ago so I'm not sure why these clips are so different from other clips that I recorded on a different day. Possibly there was more wind? Or maybe I had the mic angled differently that day? Not sure because I used the same equipment every time. I wonder if my recording level was just too low that day.

Thanks for answering so quickly.

Christine

[SteveG_AudioMasters_]

Chrisflashhelp  wrote

Hi Steve,

Possibly there was more wind? Or maybe I had the mic angled differently that day? Not sure because I used the same equipment every time. I wonder if my recording level was just too low that day.

No, there's something else going on there. The basic background hiss level is much too high, and it's continuous - not wind noise. It's almost as though you had a mic preamp that's turned right down, and a gain stage after it set much higher to compensate for that. This would be the classic case for that much hiss... that or a malfunctioning mic.

[Chrisflashhelp]

Thanks Steve. I'm also wondering if maybe I did NOT use a boom mic that day and just used the mic on the recorder. Or possibly the batteries were dying in the recorder. A month ago my batteries were almost dead and the recorder wouldn't even record AT ALL even though there was some juice left. I put new batteries in and it was back to normal.

[SteveG_AudioMasters_]

That might well be enough... If I'm going to record anything at all that I want to keep, using battery-powered equipment, I always put fresh batteries in it first, and carry some spares. That's usually a lot cheaper than retakes!

[Chrisflashhelp]

One more question Steve (since you are very knowledgable!).....I'm wondering if movie studios usually clean up every audio file to make them perfect. Is that a thing? Or maybe their audio files are recorded so well that they can just use them "as-is"? For this no budget first movie of mine...I cleaned up a handful of files and also needed to us the limiter A LOT to raise quieter voices. I think maybe my movie has a raw 1970's feel to it!

[SteveG_AudioMasters_]

They'll do anything they need to. If things get too bad with dialogue, they'll re-record it and resync it - Audition can do that too. But generally, if they know that they want to keep original audio, they go to a lot of trouble to capture it correctly in the first place, yes. Everything else, like spot effects, etc tend to get introduced during the post production process - sometimes known as 'Foley'.

Would they clean audio up if they needed to? Of course they would! Although they'd be much more likely to use iZotope's RX, as it has several tools specific to fixing movie audio in it. It's clever, but it's not that cheap.

There is absolutely no reason why, if you take a bit of care, that you can't produce first-class results using Audition, even with relatively cheap equipment. The results you get are far more dependent upon how you use it than what it is. And the key to this is entirely in how you capture and record your sound in the first place. Whilst you may be able to clean up some things like noise, etc to a degree, the actual audio you capture can't actually be 'improved' as such. Worth remembering, that...

[Chrisflashhelp]

Thanks so much for all your help!!!