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Reducing Over Modulation
Is there any way to reduce or remove over modulation? We recorded someone with a wireless lav mic and the levels looked fine on the camera, but the receiver must have been sending a slightly over modulated signal into the camera because when the talent would say a word loudly it would break up slightly and sound a little bit like they were talking through a kazoo.
Let me know if there’s any way to reduce this after it’s been recorded because we don’t have the option to re-record it.
Thanks.
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7 Replies
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I used to fix these, by hand, in ProTools… you can use the pencil tool and re-draw the waveforms, fill in the curves where they got mangled in modulation – but there are probably hundreds of these waveforms, huh?
I’m SURE there’s a better way of doing it by now. Have you tried using the analysis tab in Soundtrack Pro? May not be perfect, but better than nothing!
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I use the waveform redraw trick in Pro Tools as well, but as mentioned it can be a bit unwieldy with a lot of distorted material. You could try this ap:
https://www.izotope.com/products/audio/rx/
The De-Clipper function works really well. The fully functioning free demo will run 30 days I think.
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I second Izotope RX. It’s a terrific tool.
John
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Hello Shaun and welcome to the Cow Audio Forum.
Last month I fielded a similar question and sent a clip of clipped audio to Izotope with a heads up to them with the thought that a more powerful app would be very helpful. I don’t recall having heard back from them.
So this was mic directly into the camera?
Note to anyone else who reads this. This could have been prevented by listening to the camera headphone output. As I am so fond of saying, “When do you listen? Always.”
Regards,
Ty Ford
Want better production audio?: Ty Ford’s Audio Bootcamp Field Guide
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Actually, I was listening to the headphones, but the distortion is very light and I, for whatever reason, didn’t catch it during the shoot. I believe the cause of it was that the mic had been used for a live production prior and the output from it had been set to +12 dB, where we usually keep it at +0 dB for video shoots.
I didn’t catch this until after the shoot. And, yes, the mic was going straight into the camera.
Thanks for the help guys, I’ll try the suggestions you’ve given me.
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Shaun,
Thanks so much for filling the details.
About the headphones. I was at a client’s studio a few weeks back giving Pro Tools training. We were recording vocals. I put his headphones on……something was definitely NOT right.
I plugged in my Sony MDR7506 and instantly the world got better. His headphones made the audio sound as if the audio was coming through six pair of sweat sox. Really dull and no top end. I don’t know what phones you’re using, or what shape they are in, but they may well have prevented you from hearing the clips.
The Sony MDR7506 ($99) while not flat, to tell you a lot about the audio. If you’re not using them, I suggest you try a pair. We location sound folks use them a lot.
Regards,
Ty Ford
Want better production audio?: Ty Ford’s Audio Bootcamp Field Guide
Watch Ty play guitar -
I second Ty’s observation about the headphones. You have to train your ear with a consistant monitoring environment, so you know instantly when something isn’t right. For me, there are no other headphones for film and TV work. I carry mine everywhere. I have 7 pair, the oldest of which is 15 years old.
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