remove rustling from audio

[Mark Suszko]

Step 1: build time machine
Step 2; go back in time and tape the lav mike down better.
Sorry, the joke was just an attempt to cheer you up, because the bad news is, you probably can’t fix it well enough. Not that you shouldn’t still keep trying, though.

Don’t try to make the lav sound like the second mic. Concentrate on filtering the scratches out of the lav channel, without affecting the frequency range of the human voice, using a multiband EQ and high-pass and low-pass filtering, and try boosting the presence of the off-mic second channel by adding some compression, while using your multi-band equalizer to take out some of the low end of channel 2, and take out the highest frequencies of the scratches on the lav.

Don’t add reverb or echo, and don’t try just raising the overall volume of track 2 by normalizing, which also raises the noise level, but maybe try adding additional identical copies of the second channel, in synch with the original.

[Mike Albertini]

Hi Mike,

Thanks for your response…The joke did help…sitting in front of my computer for hours trying to get rid of a rustling sound was driving me nuts…especially when I didn’t record it myself and I suspect the client wants miracles…

Anyway, I’m calmer this morning and have perspective again…and I’ll give the guy your advice about the time machine 😉

Really appreciate the help

All the best

Mike

[John Fishback]

Checkout iZotope RX2. It is capable of removing unwanted sounds from under dialogue. I’ve used it many times – not on rustling, but other sounds.

John

MacPro 8-core 2.8GHz 8 GB RAM OS 10.5.8 QT7.6.4 Kona 3 Dual Cinema 23 ATI Radeon HD 3870, 24″ TV-Logic Monitor, ATTO ExpressSAS R380 RAID Adapter, PDE enclosure with 8-drive 6TB RAID 5
FCS 3 (FCP 7.0.3, Motion 4.0.3, Comp 3.5.3, DVDSP 4.2.2, Color 1.5.3)

Pro Tools HD w SYNC IO & 192 Digital I/O, Yamaha DM1000, Millennia Media HV-3C, Neumann U87, Schoeps Mk41 mics, Genelec Monitors, PrimaLT ISDN

[Mike Albertini]

Hi John,

Thanks for the suggestion…Just downloaded iZotope RX2 Advanced…I’ll take a look at any tutorials I can find and read their pdf manual, but in terms of removing unwanted sounds from under dialogue, do you have any tips/workflow advice in RX2 please(the noise I’m trying to remove is the lav mic scraping on a shirt during interview)? Any suggestions much appreciated

Thanks,

Mike

[John Fishback]

I’m not in front of my computer, but what you need to do is identify the frequency range of the offending sound by zooming in the FREQ range. Look for the shapes in the display that are in that range as you play the sound. Then highlight the shape and delete. If the sound is gone or reduced you now know it’s shape. If the sound is still there, undo and look for a different shape. Once identified, you move through the clip and remove the unwanted sound. BTW, i believe Soundtrack Pro 3 may have similar functionality, but I’ve never used it to remove underneath sounds.

John

MacPro 8-core 2.8GHz 8 GB RAM OS 10.5.8 QT7.6.4 Kona 3 Dual Cinema 23 ATI Radeon HD 3870, 24″ TV-Logic Monitor, ATTO ExpressSAS R380 RAID Adapter, PDE enclosure with 8-drive 6TB RAID 5
FCS 3 (FCP 7.0.3, Motion 4.0.3, Comp 3.5.3, DVDSP 4.2.2, Color 1.5.3)

Pro Tools HD w SYNC IO & 192 Digital I/O, Yamaha DM1000, Millennia Media HV-3C, Neumann U87, Schoeps Mk41 mics, Genelec Monitors, PrimaLT ISDN

[Mike Albertini]

Hi John,

Thanks for the advice…much appreciated

Mike

[Joe Gorges]

This is a LONG time ago, but did you figure out something that worked?

[Mike Albertini]

Hi Joe,

Yep, I followed John’s advice on his workflow inside of Izotope RX and it really cleaned it up well…