Cleaning up an audio sound track using audition 1.5

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John C
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Joined: Mon Mar 30, 2009 3:48 pm

Cleaning up an audio sound track using audition 1.5

Post by John C »

A Farmer friend asked me to film a stock judgeing of some of his cattle in a shed.

The commentary is of variable volume and the Mooing of cattle and their movement and spectator noise at another level. all intermittant.

Please does anyone have an address for a tutorial for Audition / Audacity or some basic pointers to clean up some of the background noise.

I appreciate that the sound track will never be good but it could be better.

Any advbice or help would be appreciated.


KR

John C.
Mike Shaw

Re: Cleaning up an audio sound track using audition 1.5

Post by Mike Shaw »

Not the answer to your question, but a possible alternative approach to the problem ...

When I had a similar problem some years ago, I ran the recorded sound as a background and added a VO which gave a brief explanatory summary of the important information from the speaker. The ambient noise is pretty important, but more important are the facts. Naturally sink the ambient noise level down behind the added VO.

This approach was born from some advice given to me many many years ago ... "If a problem is too difficult to solve, avoid having the problem"
John C
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Joined: Mon Mar 30, 2009 3:48 pm

Re: Cleaning up an audio sound track using audition 1.5

Post by John C »

Dear Mike,

Thank you for that suggestion. It is very attractive as time is now "of an essence" as he has seen some rough cuts !!!.

As I type I have the thought that I will ask one of the more Knowledgeable and articulate collectors of the Breed to do the commentary you suggest.

Brilliant.

KR

John C.
Mike Shaw

Re: Cleaning up an audio sound track using audition 1.5

Post by Mike Shaw »

Glad it helped! I'm sure you'll find it will work well - and at the end, you'll most likely have a better movie with a clearer, more understandable commentary.

It's a maxim that has served me well over the years - with a difficult to solve problem, find an alternative that simply avoids having that problem. Then it doesn't have to be solved. Works in all areas of life and at all levels!
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Dave Watterson
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Re: Cleaning up an audio sound track using audition 1.5

Post by Dave Watterson »

Glad Mike's wisdom has solved the problem ... but I would also appreciate any links to tutorials on the Adobe Audition and Audacity sound editors. I have watched - and listened! - to a few on YouTube and one of the Adobe sites but none that I would recommend.

Dave
Arthur Bates
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Re: Cleaning up an audio sound track using audition 1.5

Post by Arthur Bates »

Hi John, I had a problem with a high pitched whistle on my sound track. I used Adobe Audition 1.5 to remove it. As I could not hear the sound but anyone under 40 could, I used the Analyser to identify the frequency of the sound and then the Effects to filter it out. This worked well but I suspect your unwanted sound may be more complex and you may already have tried this. Arthur B.
John C
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Re: Cleaning up an audio sound track using audition 1.5

Post by John C »

Thanks Arthur,

I will try that. I suspect that the final result will be a mixture of a number of approaches.

KR

John C.
John C
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Re: Cleaning up an audio sound track using audition 1.5

Post by John C »

Dave,

You set me thinking and as a result I have bought a Book on Audition 2.(PC Audio Editing with Adobe Audition 2.0: Broadcast, desktop and CD audio production; E-bay and Amazon) A wide range of prices but I will let you know how good it is in due course. :roll:
KR
John C
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Dave Watterson
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Re: Cleaning up an audio sound track using audition 1.5

Post by Dave Watterson »

Thanks, John.
On the one hand we are loath to spend money on books and courses because we cannot know in advance how good they are - or how appropriate to our level of understanding - while on the other we spend thousands on cameras and hundreds on computers ... because there are reviews of and comments on those things, which we can scan beforehand.
Hmmm.

Dave
Mike Shaw

Re: Cleaning up an audio sound track using audition 1.5

Post by Mike Shaw »

If a book is available on Amazon, you'll usually find some reader reviews of it - around the 'star rating' there'll be a clickable link. Very useful they are, too - I have avoided a couple of techie books as a result of reading those reviews - which made it clear that that particular book wasn't exactly what I was looking for. There are usually good reviews and bad reviews - I go for the bad ones mainly. I remember way back having a house 'properly' surveyed before buying - and the report, about 35-40 pages, was bad news from one end to the other. I said to the surveyor - "Not worth buying then" and his reply shook me a bit - he said it was well worth the money and I'd be a fool not to buy it: he said that I could see 'the good bits' for myself - his job was to point out all the defects that would/could need attention at some point or other. Also, I realise now, there was an element of 'covering their backside' - if something goes wrong and they haven't reported it, then you can go back to them and complain 'expensively'. I try to discard reviews that simply enthuse from one end to the other - hence I go for the 'bad' reviews mainly (and read between the lines!"! :) )

Reading the 'official' reviews - and publisher's blurb - for a book doesn't always provide the kind of judgemental info one requires before a purchase. But reader reviews - I find them a good guide most of the time as to whether its a good book, and suitable for my purpose.
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TimStannard
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Re: Cleaning up an audio sound track using audition 1.5

Post by TimStannard »

I concur entirely with Mike's advice about going for the "bad" reader reviews, but even that doesn't tell the whole story. Especially with technical material, one man's chalk is another's cheese - two different authors can explain the same thing in two entirely different ways and different readers will prefer one over the other - perhaps dramatically. SImilarly one man's "intermediate" can be very different from the next!

Many books go some way towards helping out here by providing samples from the text on Amazon, and we can only hope more will do the same, but sadly, the only guaranteed way to tell whether a book works for you, is to read it.

But then that's like all things in life ...
Tim
Proud to be an amateur film maker - I do it for the love of it
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