remove microphone noise caused by clothing rustle on microphone

[DianaJonas-Dywer]

Hi,

I am well aware that it is best practice to have good audio with no noise in the first place, however, I have a video that cannot be retaken and the sound is very clear but there is some noise from the microphone and clothing. I really need to just do the best job I can with the video and audio that I have.

I have audition but the noise is intermittent and it is difficult. Any advice would be gratefully received.

Warm regards,

Diana

[ryclark]

Normal Noise Reduction won't help with intermittent noise unfortunately. The only way is to try and identify the rustles in the Spectral view and try to paint them out but it won't be easy as it depends on whether it is over speech or just, if you are lucky, in the gaps.

[Alan_Craven]

I have used Copy/Mix Paste quite successfully in spectral view, using an adjacent area of ambient which does not include the rustle.  I find this a lot quicker than the paint brush.  Using spectral view you can select a rectangle of the required time duration and frequency range for copying - the rustle is most obvious at higher frequencies.  So you can eliminate these whilst leaving the speech unaffected.

These days, I seem to do all my editing in spectral view. 

[DianaJonas-Dywer]

Thanks for that it was worth a try but still very difficult. I have a second sound track but its quite low and if I amplify it it sounds a bit like its in a tunnel.  Any hints on this one would be appreciated.

[Alan_Craven]

Glad it helped!  You will never remove all the rustle unless it is in an area where there is no wanted sound, but the technique I describe reduces its impact.  Ryclark's method is needed where the rustle is among wanted sound - my work is wildlife, and I have this problem a lot with birdsong, which is generally higher frequency than speech.

The key is not to be too heavy handed, or your result can all too easily sound very artificial, and in many ways worse that the impaired original.