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Audio problem – can anyone offer a suggestion?
I have an audio problem and if anyone can suggest a solution I would appreciate it – even if it means spending money on more software. I had a mixer preamp fail on me while recording a high-school orchestra and it introduced a lot of noise downstream that I think is hopeless to recover. I realized the problem at lunch break when we did the first playback, but the director simply would not go back to re-record the earlier pieces.
Listen to it and tell me if there’s any way to clean it up. This is a composite of 16 tracks, but the noise is identical on all channels.
In set 2 I removed the noisy preamp and re-miked the stage for eight microphones and the second set sounds good. But, as I said, the director would not re-record the first set.YES, lesson learned. I should have insisted on a complete sound check, and replay before committing to record the first set instead of waiting until the lunch break. But everything sounded good in the headphones (upstream monitoring) and I had used these preamps before many times.
Steve Mann
MannMade Digital Video
http://www.mmdv.com -
45 Replies
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The declicker in Izotope RX2 was able to remove the clicks, but some distortion remains. I was unable to see a way to remove the distortion.
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De-click work very well. Where is the distortion? How far in?
Grazie
Video Content Creator and Potter
PC 7 64-bit 16gb * Intel® Core™i7-2600k Quad Core 3.40GHz * 2GB NVIDIA GEFORCE GTX 560 Ti
Cameras: Canon XF300 + PowerShot SX50HS Bridge -
I’m hearing distortion several times. One example is between 32.644 and 33.295. I am listening on headphones. I don’t know if you can hear it on speakers.
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Is that as a result of the declick?
Video Content Creator and Potter
PC 7 64-bit 16gb * Intel® Core™i7-2600k Quad Core 3.40GHz * 2GB NVIDIA GEFORCE GTX 560 Ti
Cameras: Canon XF300 + PowerShot SX50HS Bridge -
I can try and remove those clicks with Spectral Layers but I really don’t hear distortion, only the clicks.
Where does the distortion appear?Roger Bansemer – PaintingAndTravel.com
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I’m using Cans&Speakers. I’ll have a closer “look”. Is it pre- or post iZo?
G
Video Content Creator and Potter
PC 7 64-bit 16gb * Intel® Core™i7-2600k Quad Core 3.40GHz * 2GB NVIDIA GEFORCE GTX 560 Ti
Cameras: Canon XF300 + PowerShot SX50HS Bridge -
I’m not sure what your question is. I was listening in declick preview. I have now processed it, and I can still hear a problem in the same region. Before processing, a click is right at the same spot so I am not sure if the distortion is present before declicking occurs. I can also hear distortion at other points, but it is probably an improvement over the clicks.
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Bob, yeah, it’s messy.
Grazie
Video Content Creator and Potter
PC 7 64-bit 16gb * Intel® Core™i7-2600k Quad Core 3.40GHz * 2GB NVIDIA GEFORCE GTX 560 Ti
Cameras: Canon XF300 + PowerShot SX50HS Bridge -
Yeah, it’s messy.
That’s the most polite way to describe it.
So, Bob, Graham and Roger, I really appreciate the way you all tried to offer help so quickly. This is my second project with this producer and the second time I fraked up his audio, so you can appreciate why I am willing to spend more money to reduce the problem. I don’t have either Izope nor Spectral Layers, so I would appreciate hearing the fix that you were able to effect. That would help me decide which solution to pursue for the other five scenes.
As I said, this was sixteen tracks of audio captured on Vegas on a high school orchestra stage using a pair of Presonus Firepods. I had just purchased the second Firepod to provide the sixteen audio channels and it tested great in the studio. I was excited to be able to record sixteen tracks which meant we could mike each group of instruments. I had been using a single Firepod on the same laptop for years without any issues to record small musical groups for music videos, plays and musicals. This was my first movie soundtrack for this producer and he has another project in mind for this summer. I really want to fix this audio if I can. My reputation is at stake.
Lessons learned:
My setup time was extremely limited. The music director scheduled the arrival of the musicians at the same time as the producer, a small film crew (making a behind the scenes video) me, and my music producer – whom I had just met. I wanted two hours of setup time without the musicians, but we were setting up microphones a 100-ft sixteen channel snake (wow, that’s heavy) and the recording gear around the musicians in tune-up mode.
This was the last and only error out of my control. From there I let the pressure to start recording get ahead of me. As soon as the upstream mix sounded good, we told the music director that he could begin. We recorded music for six scenes then broke for lunch when the producer wanted to hear what we recorded. I moved the headphone amp from the Firepod mix that we were monitoring and plugged into the laptop to listen to the raw files we recorded. You can imagine the horror as I listened to the playback for the first time, and the producer said “what’s that noise”.
Those three words cut deep. I heard nothing like that noise during my checkout of the recently purchased (second) Firepod. It worked great in the studio with ten microphones in various input configurations but my test recording was with the microphones clustered near a television in the studio at normal volumes. But the louder levels of the instruments is where the noise developed. It wasn’t clipping, the clipping LEDs were not flickering and the upstream mix of the Firepods sounded great. Apparently the Firewire port on the PC was overwhelmed by the 16-channels of high level audio data.
Since I can’t buy a more powerful laptop with Firewire, I am going to record one more performance in the queue (different project), but with only 8 microphones (and a lighter 50-ft 8-channel snake) then sell the Firepods on eBay. They are holding a great resale value so the cost to upgrade to current USB2 versions from Presonus is not that great.
Or should I buy a (shudder) Mac laptop?
I would feel so dirty touching a Mac, let alone owning one.
Anyway, that’s my story.
What’s the advice from you guys?
Steve Mann
MannMade Digital Video
http://www.mmdv.com -
I have been playing around with the audio in Spectral Layers which can do amazing things but for the life of me I can’t remove those cracks.
Here’s what they look like in Spectral Layers. It seems that the audio is so tightly mixed with the clicks that I can’t seperate them. Maybe if I were better with the program it would be possible.
I’ve removed car horns, insect sounds, etc. but I can’t conquer this.
The arrow marks one of the clicks.
Roger Bansemer – PaintingAndTravel.com
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