This audio is messed up! 1 – Thoughts on why? 2 – Anyway to repair it?

[Richard Crowley]

That is called “popcorn noise” (for obvious reasons).
The most likely cause is the microphone head itself is going bad.
Or the cable going to the mic head.
Or it is suffering from leakage from high humidity or other environmental causes.

Whether it is “repairable” depends on your schedule and budget.
There are expensive software tools that might be able to reduce the noise, but I wouldn’t bet on it.
You might be able to fix it manually, but it would take someone with good experience a lot of time.
Or you could re-shoot it if possible.

This is why we always MONITOR the audio on good headphones while we are recording.

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Recording audio without metering and monitoring is exactly like framing and focusing without looking at the viewfinder.

[Peter Groom]

Well said Richard

HEADPHONES!!!

Never ceases to amaze me.
Peter

Post Production Dubbing Mixer

[Noam Osband]

Is there any way to test which of the components it might be or just mix and match, play around, and see what combinations cause it?

[Peter Groom]

I had a play with it in izotope but had no success. An izotope EXPERT might be able to help but im not sure because it isnt smooth , constant, a click, of a narrow freq range or any of the other easily defined parameters. If you want a specialist who you might be able to hire to look at it send me a pm.

Its not helpful I know, but I tend to think that the lessons from this are that
1) It should have been spotted within the 1st 1/4 of a second
2) Recording paused and rectified
3) Never record without headphones, and listen to a playback of a short sample before going forward.
4) I think youll need to accept the utter embarrassment and try fro a re record, or live with it and do much better next time.

Post Production Dubbing Mixer

[Noam Osband]

I almost always use headphones. Obviously the one time I dont……here’s hoping I can figure out the problem quickly…..