This is not a good thing. So in-between the required household duties I am pull up a video and, to the extent possible, find a way to upload and display it. This does not always work. I found a video that is 30 minuets of the sound of it banging in my handbag.
In March 2012 I attended the Media for the 99% Summit. Robert Scheer started talking. History and journalism perspective came tumbling out. The man has got a lot to say.
As it happens, the HD camcorder battery gave out and there was no electrical socket near me. I needed to switch to one of my SD back-up cameras. I might have to stop doing that.
Seriously, the dude can go a while. I recorded the video and forgot about it until today.
This morning, I try to import it into Sony Vegas Studio HD and it is a no go, it is a .MOD video. Vegas Studio can do a lot of things but not open my .MOD videos.
I swing over to Serif MoviePlus X5. I bring it in, clean it up a bit so that his skin tone is not the same color as the background. I find a short section and snip out a bit as an introduction to this man for my viewers.
And that is when I heard it. Burrr. It would be silent and then another series of Burrr Burrr Burrr. What the heck? I know what it is. It is the sound of the motor or electronics in the older SD camcorder.
Stumble Into Solutions
I export the audio from the video into iZotope Music and Voice Cleaner. I could make his voice clear and distinct but so was the Burrr, Burrr, Burrr. I export the cleaned audio but this was not a solution.
I thought, what if there was a white noise/audio mask for the Burrr, Burrr, Burrr? I went looking for white noise. Of which there is a lot of mp3s for very interesting reasons. One of which is babies love certain types of white noise. Parents love non-screaming babies. You do the math.
Over at Archive.org not only do I find white noise, but pink noise and brown noise. The brown stuff sounded muted and defused. Perfect, I thought. I plunk it in with the intention of halving the brown noise volume to mask the dreadful Burrr, Burrr, Burrr.
It didn't work. I had the Burrr, Burrr, Burrr and the brown noise and Mr. Scheer's voice. Toss out the brown noise and start again.
I open Audacity and import the cleaned audio file. I'm thinking if I can snag a segment of the Burrr, Burrr, Burrr maybe I can yank it out.
No disrespect to Mr. Scheer but the man does not take a breath. He talks. Fast. There was no way to find a segment of the sound without his voice. I am not an audio engineer. The answer could have been siting in my face as I scan the Effects menu. I wouldn't know it.
My eyes land on the track meters. I'm looking at the wave form and the track meters.
I could see that the Burrr, Burrr, Burrr happening on the right track. I did a couple of tests and that is where the buggers were. Ok, I need to delete the right track. Yes?
No. You can delete an entire stereo track. Not what I wanted. But in Audacity you can merge a stereo track to a mono track. I merged the stereo track to mono and there was no more Burrr, Burrr, Burrr. Well, it is there but it is sufficiently muted.
It was a lark thing to do. It worked. Using the cleaned copy I guess his voice on the left track was louder than the Burrr, Burrr, Burrrs on the right track. I don't know for sure.
What Worked
- Start from simplicity. Try the simple cures first before you bring out the hammers and saws.
- I had an updated copy of Audacity. There were more tools to choose from and the interface was tweaked.
- I worked from a copy of the original file. Never trash your original file.
- When you have tried everything you know be willing to try what you don't know.
Related Posts
- Added A Beep Tone to Mask A Cuss Word
- Audio Recording Tips for Smartphone and Personal Media Recorders
- The Levalator for Balancing Audio
No comments:
Post a Comment
I love actual comments. Please understand that comments will be held until I get a chance to look them over or wake up, whichever comes first.
Spam and other forms of hate speech are not welcome here. And due to the actions of spam bots and the people that love them moderation is in full effect.