Best effect for horrible audio

[Diana Fisk]

Hi All

I have attached a file taken from a recording from a sound booth at a recent concert I filmed.. Any advice on how to make it any better using Premiere or Audition? I have improved it slightly with a high pass effect but not sure if this is the best option?

Any help would be so greatly appreciated!!!

Thanks
Diana

[Mark Whittle]

Ouch - Sounds like a bad cable.

I quickly ran it through Audition and got this, but with a bit of gentle tweaking you should get an improvement. Save different versions in case you process it too much.

Open the file in Audition and select the first few seconds before the singing starts, then press SHIFT + P to capture a noise print.

Then go to effects > Noise Reduction/Restoration > Noise Reduction (process). In the box that comes up there are two sliders, one for reduction and the other for how many dB to reduce. Be pretty conservative or it'll sound like a robot in a drainpipe. If your computer speakers are not wonderful, you can use headphones.

There's a play button in the bottom to preview the effect before you apply. Remember to select the whole waveform, not just the bit you sampled for the noise print.

Then you can boost the overall level and do it all again as I did. It's not wonderful but its better than it was. It also sounds a bit thin because of the low frequencies you removed with the HPF.

Someone who really knows what they're doing could do a much better job than me, including getting rid of the buzzes here & there.

[Dave O'Melia]

Audition has great facilities for dealing with noise. I think there is even a hum preset.

[Oren Arieli]

Nicely cleaned up by Mark. I wouldn't guess it will get measurably better than that.

[Diana Fisk]

Thanks so much!!! Mark, your answer was incredibly helpful :))

[Bruce Watson]

Originally Posted by Diana Fisk

Thanks so much!!! Mark, your answer was incredibly helpful :))

Yes, what Mark said. I would add that several light passes are usually better than one heavy pass. And, the "trick" to this kind of noise reduction is to recognize that you aren't trying to eliminate the noise, just reduce it to an acceptable level. If you push too far, you generate too many artifacts, and find that you're just trading the first noise for new artifacts, which in general isn't much of an improvement.

If you really want to get after it, look at the IZotope RX 3 set of tools. Pricey, but works.