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Taking out background interference
OK, Saturday I was videoing a dinner talk at a residence for a documentary and while the speaker is giving his talk I get from the hallway the chimes of a grandfather clock…nice and loud. I had everyone turn off their phones and even took the residence phone off the hook, never occurred to me to check other rooms for a grandfather clock, my bad there. Is it possible to peel them out even when they are blended in his voice waves? Two cameras and of course both have the “flaw”.
Of course I’ll wait for the laughing to die down before you type.
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8 Replies
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Hi
If you post the sample ill have a listen in the studio for you.
PeterPost Production Dubbing Mixer
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Sorry. I can’t remove the clock from your recording.
PeterPost Production Dubbing Mixer
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An added thought
If you reallly, really want rid, you could try going back to the same room, with the same mic, mic position and direction, recorder, cable etc etc and make a recording of the clock doing the same time IN THE SAME LOCATION as it was before.
Then sync up the 2 recordings waveforms down to the sample. The new clock only left and the old clock and iv right. Then throw 1 out of phase and mono the 2 up. That would likely get rid of the majority of your clock. But you need that new recording, and i cant stress enough the imnportance of replaicating every detail in the new recording.
PeterPost Production Dubbing Mixer
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Thanks Paul, seems like no matter how many bases you cover you still get a new gremlin pop up. Guess it cam be a lesson for everyone, check EVERYTHING. Next time it’s phones off, check the stove and microwave alarms, unplug the smoke detectors, kill every clock, put the cats and dogs out, THEN check under every bed just to be sure.
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It may or may not be germane to your situation but…
It’s perfectly okay if a grandfather clock goes off while you’re doing an interview to just stop the recording – tell everyone to wait for the clock to finish – and back up to the prior question.I know that only works in EFP situations, and not if you’re recording a “happening live” event.
But just to keep the thinking open.
Also, you could sample the chimes, which should be pretty narrow band in terms of frequencies – and see how that falls compared to the range of the spoken content.
You might get lucky and find a narrow notch will kill the gongs – but I’d suspect not based on the fact that the other poster took at look at it in terms of forensic video analysis and couldn’t do anything.
Sometimes you’re just gonna get hosed no matter what you try.
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HI Bill
It was the clock chimes harmonics that were spread right up through the frequency spectrum (quite surprisingly) that made it not fixable. NOt so much the core sound
PeterPost Production Dubbing Mixer
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Yeah, makes sense.
Life would be so much easier if all sounds were just nice, tidy sine waves, huh?
Know someone who teaches video editing in elementary school, high school or college? Tell them to check out http://www.StartEditingNow.com – video editing curriculum complete with licensed practice content.
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