Help needed with background noise removal

Hello all,

I'm a student, I'm working on a video project. The video was shot in a large room with the aircon on, hence the microphone picked up a lot of background noise. I'm new to audio editing and I've tried adobe audition to remove the noise. I've had a bit of success but the edited audio has a echo, the volume is reduced and there is a strong emphasis on the letter "S".

I am posting a small sample of the audio, I was wondering if you any of you would be able to edit it for me so that I know what settings/filters/processes I can use to achieve the best sound.

Sample Audio: http://rapidshare.com/files/69541725/UL_Consent.wav.html


I would be very grateful for your help.

Thanks.

I'm surprised the people doing audio didn't hear the background noise. I rescued a film last year with a similar situation. Girl shooting the film hired two guys who were more into each other than her film. Guess who got shafted on that one? Cost her $300.00 to get usable sound.

If you're a student, you must have a teacher and or other students who can help you find a wayout. Last resource: reshoot with an audio person who knows.

Best of luck.

I agree with Liquid Fusion. Get rid of these guys and hire a new one.

Another option is to apply noise reduction, hiss reduction and some equalisation. It's possible, but don't expect the best results. Use the first 0.85 s to make a noise profile, and use that profile for noise reduction.

First of all deal with the mains hum at 50, 100 and 200 Hz using parametric notch filters.

Then, using AA's Spectral View, select just the brightly-coloured low-frequency noise and get a noise profile. You should be able to go in quite strongly with NR at these frequencies without having too much adverse effect on the bulk of the voice frequencies, which is where your echo came in.

What's left is a much gentler broadband hiss - a little light NR will relieve this to a degree which may be acceptable to you.

The buzzing may respond to a good decrackle routine, if you have one - Waves X-Crackle seemed to help quite a lot, but it's not cheap!

The real trick here is getting the right balance of filtering and applying it very selectively. The initial notch EQ is not noise reduction and therefore acts much more simply to eliminate those mains hum frequencies. The second stage of quite strong NR, because it's only used on those very low frequencies where the bulk of the problem lies, has minimal audible side effects. For the final NR you probably want the very best you can afford - I've had a go at it with Izotope's RX Advanced module set at maximum resolution and it seems to come out OK, especially when matched with pictures - take a listen to the the attached MP3 file.

It's not prefect, and the second voice is somewhat off-mic, which doesn't help. But if this is indicative of what you've got then it's certainly fixable to a degree which is probably usable. Good luck!