Colour correction/reducing audio noise/feedback

[PCC]

Will do tomorrow (10 hours time), gotta recreate it cos I replaced it all with noise removed version in the timeline. Got earlier versions of it though so should be simple to do. I think also the audio peaking may have an effect on the noise removal - everything was set to 0db before I exported and then noise removed in Audacity.

[budwzr]

I tried to normalize it, but it's no good, hahaha. I guess you stopped/started the recorder during filming, which is fine, but the acoustics changed too.

And the volume skyrocked between 7:30 - 7:45, but the waveform didn't show a dramatic peak, so I think somebody hosed that up. So the volume can't be leveled proceduraly. AKA, it has to be hand done.

[PCC]

Yeah, I'm not really bothered about it sounding the same all the way through, just clean all the way through.

[budwzr]

There's a few, actually one, audiologist in this board. Have you posted this in the Audio section.

Actually, I remember now that when I watched this before, that the audio was no good because I tried to play with it before. And it gave me a headache, hahaha.

[PCC]

I posted it as a reply. I'll get onto it tomorrow. First thing, get an MP3 of the complete thing with noise, then post on here! I'm editing the videos for exhibition, so I can slot mine in last minute next week

Posted it there now.

[budwzr]

So, where is it?

[PCC]

Sorry for the wait, took a while to get it all together. Here it is, warts and all: https://www.dropbox.com/s/0mtcyt769z24mkh/AlanNoise.mp3?m

The volume is all at different levels, so it needs normalizing. There's a couple changes to it from the video - alternative dialogue at 4:18 and bigger gaps at 0:55 and 8:48, so it won't match up with the video exactly if you try that.

[PCC]

<snip>

I think I've managed what you've done, and yeah, it's not too difficult! Only problem is, I can't find any way to enter the values in Premiere, I've just had to try and match your curves.

[PCC]

This is what I'm working on now, clips of the scenes that need correcting together so I can compare them: http://youtu.be/ovJLCgtXw0s . At 3-5 seconds is where I've corrected it to match sanlyn's.

[PCC]

Alright, ideally I've got until Tuesday/Wednesday to finish it off. I'm not having much luck with the curves, I'm approaching it in the same way as sanlyn but it doesn't seem to be having as dramatic an effect.

[budwzr]

AudioAlert!: Doesn't look too promising, but it IS helping me learn some of the more esoteric tools, so it's not a waste of time.

[PCC]

Oh great The noise removal I did was quite quickly done without much attention paid to sensitivity or frequency smoothing, and it came out decently IMO, although I'm using some better headphones now and it has quite a tinny sound to it.

[PCC]

Maybe I can just "smooth out" the finished one by converting to a mono-mix, then normalizing it, then back to stereo. Or does it have to be stereo?

What do you mean by smooth out? There's nothing in the noisy track I uploaded that specifically needs to be in stereo, so I guess you could do that (and a small part was converted from mono to stereo anyway, and that sounded fine).

[budwzr]

Exactly. Thats where im at. Trying to figure out how to add back some lower frequencies. I used a noise floor, and feathered the highs and lows. But like you say, its tinny now.

[PCC]

Erm, I see what you mean. I need the gardening/boat sounds back in though eventually.

[sanlyn]

<snip>

I think I've managed what you've done, and yeah, it's not too difficult! Only problem is, I can't find any way to enter the values in Premiere, I've just had to try and match your curves.

I often use After Effects or even GIMP to determine the white point and black point. The settings aren't easy to transfer directly to other filters, so I do the same thing you did. Klutzy, bit it still works.

[PCC]

My brain is mush right now. I've been re-reading what you said about curves, just trying to get something to work, watching video tutorials for all the other Premiere colour correction methods, but none of it is working! I don't get how just by copying the curves you posted, it worked, but trying to do similar things for the other shots, it doesn't! It just takes the background colours with it, I've tried a garbage matte on just the face, vectorscopes, it just comes out yellowy.

At the same time, I'm using Adobe Audition to try and remove the noise... watching tutorials where people have the exact same problem as me, but the noise is worse, and they get a clean result, whereas mine takes the voice with it when I try! I wonder if the problem might be cos the noise is not all the way through? It stops and starts every time the dialogue stops and starts.

[budwzr]

I'm still tinkering.

The problem is the speaker's voice is too mono-syllabic, and sounds a lot like noise itself. So it's like trying to remove the sound of a truck driving by, amongst the sound of cars.

[sanlyn]

I don't have Audition, and it's been a while since I tried Premiere. I use After Effects or VirtualDub most of the time. After Effects is a recent acquisition that I'm still learning; its built-in and ColorFinesse image fixers are similar to those in other high-end video apps. I just have a preference for VirtualDub and ColorFinesse. Following the practise of most users who even bother to get involved with color and denoising, I always make color and noise corrections with lossless YUV or RGB AVI's, never with encoded video originals. The final AVi is then re-encoded with either HCEnc, TMPGenc, or an x264 encoder. All the color adjustment filters might "look" a little different, but all work in the same way. I'm not certain why your color settings don't "take" as planned. I don't see why they shouldn't.

Sorry to say, most would consider noise reduction in Adobe's apps to be under par with other pro features of their products. Noise reduction filters on still-encoded video usually results in more noise or new artifacts.

In the bottom image posted above, colors look better but the midtones need brightening. Don't do this with "brightness" and "contrast" controls. They won't give you what you want. Use a Levels control and work with the small pointer in the bottom middle of the levels graph ("gamma"). Brightness and Contrast used alone will destroy darks and highlights. Here is an Adobe video demonstrating why Brightness and Contrast should usually be avoided (and the creator uses Y/C waveforms to graph the results, which strikes me as too confusing -- but you'll get the idea): http://library.creativecow.net/articles/devis_andrew/Color-Correction-1_Premiere-Pro/video-tutorial

Keep in mind that usually you can't use the same corrections for every camera shot, especially with home video. Some shots look too red, others look too blue. The same filter can't work for both.

[PCC]

The noise I was referring to was audio noise . Thanks, I shall keep at it!

[sanlyn]

Oops. OK, I see. My bad.

[PCC]

I am trying iZotope RX2 through Audition now, to get rid of the noise. It sounds good, but then I turn the Mac audio up to the top and you can hear the noise again.

[budwzr]

I got rid of most of the general noise. I haven't processed and listened to the whole thing yet, it's quite annoying after a while, hahaha.

A lot of those "fixer" softwares only work on slightly bad sound, and they don't have a broad tool base.

[PCC]

Please explain what you've done to that... I can still hear the noise a bit, and the dialogue sounds more clipped, juddery, than it did before, there's some words missing :S

[budwzr]

Yah, looks like some kind of weirdity around the sounds.

Note: These are words, so those aren't peaks on a zoomed out view. There's no noise in the spaces between the words.

The gain was too high I think.

[budwzr]

Oh, and another thing is the volume still goes wild up and down during the whole piece, although I normalized it to -6db.

[PCC]

Mmm, perhaps I should have adjusted the levels before I exported it as an MP3.

I'm looking for some replacement music just now, this was the only kind of suitable stuff I could find on Audio Jungle to replace the Psycho music, I'd have to edit that a lot: http://audiojungle.net/item/shark-attack/160553 Do you think you could come up with something?

[budwzr]

Yeah. What are you thinking though?

[PCC]

As similar as you can be without infringing on copyright! I need a couple of new tracks for 1:53 (12 seconds) and 4:39 (10 seconds). http://youtu.be/6-cuFqr8saY

[budwzr]

As similar as you can be without infringing on copyright! I need a couple of new tracks for 1:53 (12 seconds) and 4:39 (10 seconds). http://youtu.be/6-cuFqr8saY

Do you have the original sound files? If not, I'll take them from the YT video.