Re: What is this noise and how to remove it?
 

Understood Graham.

I also run iZotope RX10, Celemony Melodyne, Capstan (audio de-wow, fantastic for old tape sources). Along with a host of other audio tools and apps. Most history doco producers have to run a comprehensive set of audio and video tools these days.

Resolve is my main NLE these days. One of the reasons I'm still using Vegas is that I'm still working on a doco series that was started in Vegas ten years back because it was then the only totally video agnostic NLE in terms of mixing any and every type of video format back then. This series is still slowly moving forward. It's for the government. It's the official history series of the Australian RAN. The history of the navy since 1788.

This project is using footage of every conceivablevideo frame rate and dimensions from film and tape and archived film on a variety of files from MPEG1/2, AVI, MXF, MOV. PAL, NTSC, SD and HD etc, etc. Along with all manner of old audio archive material off film, tape and ancient audio files. The audio from most of these archives is incredibly poor in a lot of cases. Some of the audio dates back to WWI. The round tripping of audio in and out of other programs, then finally into Pro Tools for the final mixdown was becoming a pretty onerous task.

To simplify cleaning up all this audio in one spot while actually editing the footage, I decided to arm Vegas to the teeth with whatever audio tools were required and that could work with it. Over the years I have built a very comprehensive set of VST plugs that work within Vegas, mainly iZo and Waves. Having to clean up everything from ancient newsreels and ancient political radio speeches has been a great challenge. I'm very old school. Started working with audio with the BBC back in the '60s. Nothing digital, all analogue, no readouts, no repeatability, no saving presets. All we had were VU and phase meters. You tweaked until it sounded "right". Enjoyable though.

For potent and very quick and configurable dialogue noise reduction, it's very hard for me to go past Waves Clarity Vx Pro for my work these days. For me, this has been a game changer in terms of speed. Not to mention simplicity. Dial it as you listen.

Chris Young

Re: What is this noise and how to remove it?
 

Chris - KUDOS!! Your experience far exceeds both my humble requirements and needs. In the short time I've been involved with Video, 20 years now, I've learned to try, absorb and share, and this during the tremendous technology upheaval in our Industry. For me, it's been exciting and financially rewarding, adding to which, coming across individuals, like yourself, who are willing and able to communicate their feedback.

Re: What is this noise and how to remove it?
 

In Kathy's last sample, the first thing that came to my mind was that it was suffering from a lack of microphone proximity. The second thing was that the content from the talent was a load of faffed about bollocks. I'm not at all surprised she found the audio to be unusable.

There are some things digital tools just can't fix.

Andrew

Re: What is this noise and how to remove it?
 

Indeed. Always get the mic as close as possible to source. But, again, we start from what we have now.
Nicely put. However, as pros we can’t necessarily get too dismissive of what was said, although it was a little …… Correct.

Re: What is this noise and how to remove it?
 

Not to disparage your's and Graham's efforts, but it seems what you did made the lack of proximity more apparent. There's also a subtle distortion that I'm hearing in both of the clean up samples. I think the distortion is inherent in the recording. Just more noticeable with the gain added. I gave a quick try just using gain then spectral denoise and the proximity issue wasn't as noticeable. I'll post a sample.

Re: What is this noise and how to remove it?
 

Re: What is this noise and how to remove it?
 

Yes, good work, nice repair, nice presence. No noticeable artefacts. That's the winning and telling point.

Chris Young