Simon Billington
Forum Replies Created
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The only product I know oh that has a chance at resurrecting clipped files is the Declipper in RX, which may also be available as their plugin in suite, but it’s not a guaranteed solution either.
https://www.izotope.com/en/products/repair-and-edit/rx/features.html
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Sound is more logarithmic, so for something to perceptually appear TWICE as loud, you would have to raise it by 10dB. If you raise both sources by 10dB they’d both be twice as loud, which suggests, they’d both still have the same relationship in level…
When mixing music, or audio for film/tv, engineers would just raise certain levels together or lower them together and it always seems to preserve the relationship as well.
So I’d say there is no formula needed here.
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Yeah I forgot about that. That will also do a fairly decent job too. It”s caveat being it can emulate records of varying vintage…and that it’s free.
Then there is Trash, by the same company. But you really need to have quite decent audio skills to use this one, unless you just go by presets.
https://www.izotope.com/en/products/create-and-design/trash.html
If your after a pre 50’s retro vibe I’d also suggest The King’s Microphones. I’d wait for a sale before picking it up.
https://www.waves.com/plugins/the-king-s-microphones
The thing I’m liking about the Abbey Road Vinyl is that it’s not just useful for sound design, but it has other possible applications in audio mixing and mastering. You really can’t use any of the aforementioned plugins for that purpose.
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Like the others, I tweak the the levels with the automation curves. I’ll do most my dialogue edits there, but then I’ll export as a role based QuickTime file to bring into Logic to refine any audits and do further processing there. I do since the XML support isn’t quite there yet.
Having said that FCPX 10.3 updated its XML to 1.6 I think. With that came the xpanded fearures to be able to work with role based audio. So it could be that with the next update of Logic we could see vast improvements to round-trip editing.
For simpler projects I’d stay inside FCPX and do some additional processing there.
Power tip for anyone interested…
A great dialogue levelling tool to use is Vocal Rider. It actually automates a lot of that gain riding process much faster than we can edit in ourselves. From there I would do a few other enhancing processes and just fine adjust the level automation in the end, if it’s even needed.
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Yeah I come from a solid background of audio engineering, so I tend to have my own solutions for things these days. It all depends on the source and just how much and what you need to do it to get it to fit your needs.
In terms of “vocal enhancement” its generally a combination of denoising, eq, some subtle saturation, very slight compression and limiting.
That Waves Aural Exciter is a pretty decent tool actually, Vitamin is great as well for this purpose as well and has little added flexibility. There is a new plugin designed by Andrew Scheps, Parallel Particles, that sounds quite capable for this task as well.
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Yeah the match eq will go some way to helping.
I’m not a fan of the Apple Noise Reduction algorithms, I think thats one of the few things that was pulled from Logic, but hadn’t been updated since Logic was owned by Emagic. At least, thats the impression I get.
I opt to use 3rd party tools for noise management, RX Adv if its hardcore, or some of the tools from Waves like the NS1, WNS or W43. Thats assuming noise is an issue. Best to treat it before applying Match EQ for better results.
Match EQ will get you pretty close in most cases, but in cases when it doesn’t you may want to consider additional eq and possibly very light compression for dynamic control. Generally speaking, the more distant a source is the less dynamics it has. So to balance the difference in distances a touch of compression may be required on the closest mic source.
For very transparent dynamic control I find Vocal Riderto be quite effective.
A touch of reverb or an impulse response of an open air location may also be necessary to put on the closer signals to help match its proximity. You can take advantage of Space Designer for that, try to find the closest space for your purpose.
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Okay I managed to have look at the file, but sad to say, the moment I started to play it I knew it was well beyond repair.
In fact, if this audio file were a car and that car had broken down, then I would explain the kind of damage as “it was launched off a cliff and exploded into a fiery ball of of flying mechanical parts”!!!
It really is quite bad unfortunately. So much of the audio information had been destroyed during the recording process. Nonetheless, I had a go at it and tried to restore it the best that I could. There’s some improvement, but it’s far from being good enough to be usable.
If the were playing a CD or an mp3 during the dance, I’d suggest you try and get your hands on the actual song instead. Borrow it, buy it from iTunes or something like that. If it were a band you could always ask if they had any recordings of it. Bands often make recordings of their live music. Even if you have to spend a few dollars to buy the recording it would be worth it.
Then you could find the right part of the song, replace it with the recording, add in an appropriate sound effect of small crowd, compress it a little, add a bit of hall reverb and it should do the trick.
I notice the announcer says something towards the end, if you can avoid showing that part in your shot you should be fine, otherwise you may have to record that as well. You could even try recording yourself or a mate saying the same thing in a similar manner and mess with the pitch of your voice until you get something a little closer. Drop it into the mix with all the other sounds and reverb and it may just be enough to trick them.
You might have to tweak a few things until it all sounds as realistic and as natural as you can possibly manage.
This is your best shot really. Sorry I can’t be of more help. It was simply recorded way too loud. The microphone input should have had its gain turned down far enough to avoid this kind of situation.
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Sorry, I’ve been a bit busy. I’ll have a look it in the next day or two.
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Put a sample up and we’ll take a look at it.