cleaning up audio in cs3
 

Hi, I have the cs3 suite for editing and i'm shooting on an xl2. Whe i get my audio into premiere i'm having trouble getting rid of the camera's engine grind and the haunting hiss on the audio. I've tried everything i know but the effects either make the dialogue sound weird or too mechanical. Anybody know a solution for the hissing blues???

If the 'grinding' and 'hissing' is very objectionable, it sounds like you've got some issues with your audio acquisition (or worse, the camera). Too much noise-to-signal ratio is not the norm with these cameras...they are pretty quiet by themselves.
Are you recording whispered conversation? Are you too far from your source?

Anyway, you can use Adobe's SoundBooth to sample a section of the offending noise (ideally, when you recorded room tone..) and that becomes the 'template' for noise reduction. You'll still have to play with the settings to keep audio from sounding mechanical.

Do a search through this site, or go to Adobe's forum for more info on noise reduction. And be extra careful to record good levels in the future (as well as room tone, whenever possible). A little time spent in production can save you a huge hassle in post (as you are already figuring out).

i am recording whispered conversations so maybe that's exagerating the hiss. You mentioned something about recording "room tone" when in production. Is that a setting you choose on the camera?

No Brannon,

What he means is record some room noise "tone" at a time when there is no action. You can then use that sound (hissing, fans, cars, camera noise) or whatever is there, as a template for the sound that you need to eliminate in Soundbooth. In other words, you will point Soundbooth to that room tone as the sound you need to eliminate.

Not a setting in the camera, no... just turn the camera on and record a few seconds of ambient room noise (before any of the action takes place). This way you have the "noise of the location" without any of the talent speaking and you can subtract it from your audio using SoundBooth.

You can also take a look at direct-x or vst plugins that help in noise reduction. Try x-noise or z-noise by Waves, that'll always do the job with some tweaking. Having said that, it's always best to make sure you're getting the best possible sound at source. Learn how mics work and capture sound, if you're too far or the source is too quiet then obviously you'll pick up more 'room tone' than actual speech and cranking up the audio level isn't the smartest way around it. A fundamental thing to keep in mind is that when boosting up audio gain you're also boosting up noise levels which include hiss and camera sounds. When shooting use external mics placed at optimal distances for best recorded signals. Try to see how much ambient sound there's already in the area you're going to shoot at, too much and that's no good. Audio is one thing that seldom gets fixed in post. Still, good luck with removing the hiss and grind.

Thanks for the help. I ended up using "audacity" to clean up the hissing. It did a great job. For some reason using the cs3 suite to remove hissing gives the dialogue a computerized sound. If anyone else has hising problems I recommend audacity to do the work. Thanks again!!