Modify sound
 

Recently I filmed a wedding anniversary. The recording of the speeches by a mic within arm reach of the those speaking did not work, so all I have is the audio from my camera mic which was quite a distance from where the speeches were given from.

The audio was faint and I've had to boost the volume from 8-10 times to be within a good sound range. This works.

However, the audio sounds very 'spacious' - 'cavenous' even, if those terms mean anything to audio buffs.

How can I reduce the 'spacious' aspect of the sound so that it is more like that which would come from a mic close up? I use the latest Goldwave editor.

This could be a tough fix and I'm afraid whatever you do will not make a great result, but you could try a couple things.

1. If the audio was recorded with your camera's on-board stereo mic, try muting one of the channels and see if that reduces some of the "space."

2. Without hearing it I'm guessing that what you are describing as spacious and cavernous could also be termed noisy. That's usually what happens when you bring up the gain on a recording where the desired sound source was too far away. Up comes the noise floor, the ambient room noise, the air conditioning, etc. There is a great tool called Cedar DeNoise. You guide it to take a sample of the ambient noise by highlighting a small section of the recording (when there is no speaking or anything that you want). The software then processes the complete recording, stripping out as much of the noise as possible without doing too much audible damage to what you want to keep. It can be a delicate balance, but I've seen (heard) it do some amazing things, rescuing recordings that were otherwise headed for the junk pile. The software is available as a plug-in for Pro Tools and as OEM for the Sadie editing system. I should mention that it isn't cheap but perhaps you could do a little inquiry and see if there is someone in your area who could process your audio for you. I've heard that the latest version of Soundtrack on the Mac includes something similar, but I haven't seen it in action. Perhaps another user can speak to that?

These kinds of situations can be so frustrating. Sure, it would be great to have a dedicated sound guy there to make sure it doesn't happen, but that just isn't the reality sometimes. Good luck.