Rodney Morris
Forum Replies Created
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I was hoping you wouldn’t hear the clipping from the camera, indicating that FCP was causing the problem. I’m sorry to say you are stuck with the clipping in that portion of the interview.
The battery going low appears to be the likely culprit, especially if you changed it and the clipping disappeared. The shotgun and the lavalier are both drawing phantom power (assuming they aren’t powered by internal batteries) and probably are creating quite a draw. How long did the battery last before you started hearing the clipping? Are you using regular alkaline or lithium ion?
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When looking at the waveform, any clipped areas will appear as flat spots at the height of the wave. Unfortunately, there’s not really anything you can do to reverse the effects of clipping with the sound tools you have at your disposal.
It sounds as if one of two things is happening. Either the Beachtek’s gain was set too high (the clipping occured at the Beachtek unit) or something is happening upon importing it into FCP. To get to some type of solution, I should ask a few questions. When you listen to the audio from the camera (through the headphone jack), do you hear the clipping? Also, what did you have plugged into the Beachtek – wired or wireless mics? If you were using condensor mics, did you have phantom power turned on? Were you using the limiters on the Beachtek?
One of the unfortunate things about the Beachtek is that there are no real level indicators or meters on it, so you’re never really sure what your levels are (unless you activate the limiters and you see them light up). That’s why portable sound mixers have tone generators built in, so that all gain stages can be calibrated to 0 dBu.
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CEDAR is a company that makes audio restoration hardware and software. CEDAR makes audio restoration tools for ProTools (both PC and Mac based). I don’t know the cost of their products – but they have generally been considered to be some of the best tools in the business. They also make tools for SADiE, Neve and others.
I’m pretty sure that you’ll need to get a ProTools TDM system to be able to use the CEDAR products. Again you’re looking at a lot of money to get into these systems. Assuming you are starting from scratch I would venture to say you are looking at, minimally, $20K to get into it (CPU, I/O modules, plug-ins, control surface, monitoring…)
Other DAWs to consider if audio restoration is high on your list:
Fairlight
SADiE
Sonic SolutionsThese are considered the “high-end” of the DAW market. Many tens of thousands of $$$ for these products. Generally only high volume production houses with purist audio engineers have this stuff.
Still, these products are only designed to remove crackle, hiss, hums, pops, thumps, distortion (somewhat) and to do it well and in real time. Removing wind noise, maybe. People talking, might be impossible.
There are tricks that an experienced engineer can use to eliminate pops and thumps within an editing program without these tools, but it’s VERY time consuming. Hiss and hums you can reduce with notch filtering, but it also notches out those frequencies within the audio you want to restore/keep.
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In my experience (as a staff ProTools engineer), noise removal plug-ins are not going to be of much help for removing wind noise and people talking in the background. Noise removal plug-ins work well for noise that is constant and consistent, such as hums and buzzes. Reducing wind noise can sometimes be a matter of EQ shelving – using a High Pass Filter (HPF) set at around 150Hz. Trying to remove people talking in the background is nigh to impossible, especially if it’s during an interview. That’s where you need a sound man in the field telling you that the background noise is too much. I spent many years as a field sound mixer and post production mixer/editor for a broadcast department. We did alot of interviews with people in the midst of a crowd. After trying to rescue many poorly recorded interviews I came to this conclusion: a good shotgun mic and a discerning set of ears in the field is what you need. I know this may not help you in your current situation, but the key to good audio is not how much you can fix in post, it’s how much you can avoid in the field.
The best editing programs with the most sophisticated (and effective) noise removal plugs cost BIG $$$$ (CEDAR, etc.).
IIRC, ProTools no longer offers a free trial version.
I’m interested in hearing what others have to say. I’m not the absolute authority on this, that’s for sure. I just know what my experiences were.
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I’ll second the SD302 from Sound Devices – it’s an excellent little mixer. Although it’s maybe a little too small (size) for my preferences, it does a lot of stuff well. Great sound, lots of flexibility for the price. It would be an upgrade in sound quality from your FP32, and I’m not bashing the Shure unit.
Sound Devices also makes the MixPre, which is a two input stereo mixer. It would do the job – assuming you don’t need three inputs – but it lacks much of the flexibility and features that you get with the 302.
Go with the 302. It also comes in under your budget – expect to pay around $1300 + tax.
I’ve owned the Sound Devices 442 since late 2001 and have used the 302 and the MixPre on occasion. They are all excellent products.
If you feel you need more than 3 inputs, check out the PSC DV ProMix, which has 6 inputs and is still within your budget. However, I can’t recommend this model. I’ve not used it, but I’ve used other PSC mixers, and I’m not really all that impressed by them. But that’s just me.
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That hiss you hear is the noise floor of the BeachTek. It sounds like you may have the gain stage of the BeachTek too low, so when you raise the levels with the camera, you raise all the noise up with it. To get a good level with the BeachTeks (and assuming you don’t have a mixer with reference tone) I would do this: plug your mic into Ch. 1 of the DXA8. Turn on phantom power (if needed) after you’ve plugged in the mic. Next, engage the limiter on that input. Now do a mic check (approximating your actual levels) and turn up the gain until the limiter just begins working on the loudest signals. Once you’ve found that level, back off the gain maybe a half step (not much, but a little). I would be inclined with that setup to go ahead and leave the limiter engaged. Now you have good gain staging for that input. Repeat for mic input 2 of the BeachTek (if you’re using it). Now you can safely set levels on the FX1. I would set the levels so that the non-limited peaks of your audio peaks at around -10 on the camera (assuming it is a digital camera). This gives you 10dB of headroom left at the camera but the limiter of the Beachtek should keep you from going over absolute 0.
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Here’s a thought. Place a piece of masking tape or cloth tape (something thin and somewhat breathable) on the top of the mic capsule then place the foam windscreen over it. Be careful not to cover the side ports of the mic with the tape. You’ll need to re-EQ but the tape may be enough to cut down on wind (breath) entering in through the top of capsule without altering the tone too much. Definitely do a sound check with this setup beforehand, as I’ve never tried this for breath pops.
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Does this particular camera have a stereo shotgun mic as the internal mic? If so, this explains why you can’t simply switch it to one channel only. Though a simple mono summing circuit would do the trick, I guess that’s how you cut costs on a camera in this price range. I’ve not used this camera extensively enough to know – I’ve provided line level feeds for it (as a third camera) from my mixer, but that’s about it.
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You can place it anywhere in line between the mic and the phantom power source, though I would suggest turning the power off before placing it in line.
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I’ll be buying the iPower lithium polymer 9-volt rechargeables with charger soon (maybe even this week) for use with my Lectrosonics 200 series transmitters. Here’s a quote from Trew Audio’s website: