Subject:Removing hollow "ambient room" tone from audio track

Posted by: blindmelonchitlin

Date:3/5/2002 5:05:54 PM

Ok, here goes: I have a sound track of a female host that was recorded with a lavaliere mic in a rather large room. The track must match a studio recorded VO of the same female in a video segment where the footage will switch from on-camera host to video over the studio track mentioned above. The audio of the host sounds rather flat and sterile and has that "hollow ambient room" tone to it. Ive tried pulling down the mid frequencies and boosting the bass and that helped warm up the sound a little, but I need to really "tighten up" that loose sounding tone and make it warmer. Is there any way in Sound Forge 5 to do this, or if anyone knows of a DirectX plug in that would do the job, it would be a lifesaver. Thanks in advance folks.

Subject:RE: Removing hollow

Reply by: rraud

Date:3/5/2002 5:46:04 PM

There is no way your ever going to perfectly match the location audio with the studio narration. You may be able to "tighten" it up a bit with the use of some EQ and an expander/noise gate. There's no plug-in that's a fix-all. Your just going to have to tweak and tweak the parameters to get the best sound. But it's never going sound like a studio VO recording.
If there's HVAC noise or traffic din from outside, the SF noise reduction plug-in will work wonders on that.

Subject:RE: Removing hollow

Reply by: Chienworks

Date:3/6/2002 10:48:50 AM

You might do better by adding some ambience reverb to the studio recording to make that sound more like the location recording. You'll get a closer match that way than trying make the location recording sound like the studio one.

Subject:RE: Removing hollow

Reply by: blindmelonchitlin

Date:3/6/2002 6:51:44 PM

No doubt man, thats exactly what I did. I eq'd the location track and added reverb to the studio track for a pretty damn good match. Next question is...would a better mic or some sort of sound reinforcement have prevented the hollow sound to begin with? I'm a video editor so my knowledge of audio principals is just enough to get by. I would appreciate any input for future use. gracias

Subject:RE: Removing hollow

Reply by: rraud

Date:3/6/2002 7:36:01 PM

Don't use any sound reinforcment.
1. Always select a good room or location for interviews if you have a choice, Libraries and living rooms are usually a good choice.
2. Do not use the auto gain level control.
3. Use a good mic. A Sony ECM-55 seems to isolate the voice better than a 77 or a Tram. Try a cardioid Lav. (I don't like them though for location work.
4. Use an external mixer if possable. The mic preamps suck on camcorders and VTRs. And yes they even suck on the expensive Sony Betacam PVV-5 dockable VTR.
5. Get a professional sound person on location. (if that's in the buget)
Anyone else have any tips for our video friend?

Subject:RE: Removing hollow

Reply by: Chienworks

Date:3/6/2002 8:32:47 PM

Get the mic as close to the speaker's mouth as possible. This increases the ratio of direct vocal sound level to room ambient sound. Of course, for video you don't want the mic in front of the speaker's face, but if you can put it within a few inches it will really help.

Subject:RE: Removing hollow

Reply by: pwppch

Date:3/10/2002 9:44:58 PM

One other possible thing to try:

If you can gain access to the room before/after the recording. Take an impulse recording of the room for use with Acoustic Mirror. You can then use that impulse to re-create the ambiance of the room for the later vocal work. Even an impluse recorded through the mic being used live will help if you can't get the whole room.

I agree with the other posts that having better control over the live recording is the best solution. Stll, if you have the ambient of the room "recorded" using the impulse, then you will always be able to place VO's into the space.

Last option to consider: Have the "talent" re-record all the dialog recorded live. Not easy, and usually not something the talent will want to do, but it is another option.

Peter