Removing Wind Noise ?

21st Jun 2017 07:24 #1

Member

I have a holiday video which suffers from low to high freq wind noise throughout (shot on GoPro..). Some segments are so bad I have had to resort to subtitles. Is there any way to remove the wind noise and isolate the speech ?

Just an observation - I can tell the wind noise from the other noises, which means that an AI should be able to. There's a PhD and a fortune in this for someone !

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21st Jun 2017 07:35 #2

smrpix

Member

Izotope RX is the gold standard. There is a free trial with limitations -- but it will give you a good idea if what you're trying to do is possible.

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21st Jun 2017 09:51 #3

johnmeyer

Member

Originally Posted by blewyn

I have a holiday video which suffers from low to high freq wind noise throughout (shot on GoPro..). Some segments are so bad I have had to resort to subtitles. Is there any way to remove the wind noise and isolate the speech ?

Short answer: no.

Wind noise is broadband and it is constant. iZotope RX (I have the advanced version) has astounding abilities to isolate things like doorbells, coughs, a baby crying, and other noises that have a definitive "noise print" with specific frequencies and which are, usually, of short duration.

That said, I have restored many audio tracks that have wind noise and sometimes you can get some "relief" by focusing on the really low-frequency -- almost subsonic -- component of the wind. iZotope has a combined time and frequency display, and if your noise has a tremendous amount of energy at the lowest frequencies, you'll see bright orange along the bottom of the timeline. You can use either spectral repair or else simply use a high pass filter to remove everything below 30-40 Hz. There will still be plenty of noise, but the result will be much easier to listen to.

For the future, the way to solve this problem is with a dead cat. If you are not familiar with that term, you'll think I'm making it up, but that is what professionals call the "thing" that is put over a microphone that looks like the fur from a long-haired cat. Most wind noise is actually caused by the interaction of the wind with the holes in the microphone cage. By replacing those holes with long strands of fur, that turbulence is eliminated and you get audio that is almost completely free of wind noise.

Dead Cat

I have no idea whether a GoPro accepts an external microphone or whether there are other solutions that work with it. Most GoPro footage I've seen on YouTube, and also that which I've shot myself, do tend to be completely trashed by wind noise which is why so many of them use music or some sort of other audio to replace the original sound.

P.S. I just did a quick YouTube search and apparently you can use an external mic with a GoPro. Here is a great example:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Z7g54lvLQ8

There is obviously a LOT of wind, but you hardly hear anything except the rather amazing engine noise (I want that car).