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Tools to fix highly compressed audio quality
I have about 150 videos in FCP X that are very old and sound bad. They seem to have been highly compressed (or compressed multiple times).
It might be close to impossible to improve the audio but I figure I’d throw it out here in case someone has any experience with this. For the record, I do have some experience with using audio filters and EQ in FCP but these videos are pretty bad.
Here’s a sample: 13720_sample.m4a.zip
I looked at this page where it recommends plugins and other tools but some of them are very expensive. I don’t mind spending up to a couple of hundred dollars or so if it’s going to improve the quality of the audio better than what FCP 10.4.4 can do.
Thanks in advance.
Xavier
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6 Replies
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Hello Xavier and welcome to the Cow Audio Forum,
Thanks so much for posting a sample. What you have here is audio that was recorded with the talent too far away from the microphone. The result is this “roomy” sound. It may have also been data compressed, but your main culprit is bad acoustics.
iZotope has a de-reverb plug in that MAY help. SPL makes DeVerb which may also help some. I have yet to hear either make audio sound proper.
Regards,
Ty Ford
Cow Audio Forum LeaderWant better production audio?: Ty Ford\’s Audio Bootcamp Field Guide
Ty Ford Blog: Ty Ford\’s Blog -
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I dont think anything (except some kind of devine intervention) is going to help that sorry audio.
It sounds like it has been data compressed to within an inch of its life – like its been skyped 3 times.
Broken.
PeterPost Production Dubbing Mixer
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[Ty Ford] “What you have here is audio that was recorded with the talent too far away from the microphone. The result is this “roomy” sound. It may have also been data compressed, but your main culprit is bad acoustics.”
Yup. I concur. Sounds like audio from a camera. And as we all know, the optimum placement for a microphone is hardly ever the optimum placement for a camera. Yet people persist in placing mics on top of cameras, and end up with sound like this.
There are software packages out there that aim to reduce the reverb (small room sound) from audio like this. Ty has pointed you toward them. If that helps, you can then use some EQ to bring the levels up on the higher frequencies to restore some of the consonants in the speakers voice to make him more understandable, and to bring back some “air” so it doesn’t sound so suffocating. Sometimes with sound like this a little compression helps too; experiment with it if you want.
To prevent this in the future, get the microphone closer to the speaker. The easy way is to clip an omni lavalier on him, as close to the sternum as possible. This is especially effective if the speaker is roaming around while talking, as a teacher might. If you can confine their movements (sit them in a chair, for example, a sit-down interview) then you can use a condenser mic on a boom pole on a c-stand (easy and effective, and which usually sounds better to my ears unless the room is really bad).
That said, it’s never likely going to be good audio. But you can make it better than it currently is.
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“And as we all know, the optimum placement for a microphone is hardly ever the optimum placement for a camera. Yet people persist in placing mics on top of cameras, and end up with sound like this.”
Bruce Watson – 9/16/19
This should be on a plaque somewhere.
Regards,
Ty Ford
Cow Audio Forum LeaderWant better production audio?: Ty Ford\’s Audio Bootcamp Field Guide
Ty Ford Blog: Ty Ford\’s Blog -
I agree! I think people (doctors in this case) underestimate the value of a well placed mic (never mind contemplating the idea of having a sound engineer on site!).
I’ll look into iZotope and if I can make any good improvements to the audio, I’ll report back.
Thanks to all!
Xavier
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