Surprised with all the years this list has been around that I couldn’t find in my searches any discussions on ways to fixing
Voice Over tracks with plosives (P, B, T) that were recorded already on a live interview from a mic connected to a video camera at a local live show.
all the web results are using a high pass filter from 80 - 300 hz…
The way I was taught to do this was to make a 2nd track and cut and bring the offending plosive segment down to that 2nd track and treat only that track with the high pass filter (rolling everything off lower than 80hz and if that doesn’t work then trying to raise the freq til it does up to as high as 300 hz to get rid of the percussive blast.
However, I’m trying to do that with this one track and using the builtin channel eq of C8.0.30
It’s not working on most of them, only the least of the offenders.
Has anyone figured out any other solutions for this problem?
note: the track is 1/2 hr straight talking from start to finish (edited down from 1 hr), so taking everysingle wave and using a pencil will be my last resort as that is very slooooo to do with so many. But will if no alternative is found. haha
I did see Greg Ono do a demonstration of C8 when it first came out and he was using some kind of side chain and envelope plugin (all stock plugins with Cubase 8) to alter the attack of individual drums to brighten them up.
I was wondering if the reverse could be used to soften an attack, but that was a while ago and I forgot how he did that whole setup and have yet to learn how to actually use sidechaing.
Anyone care to chime in and help me out on this dilemna?
It would be much appreciated. Need to turn this around after a couple weeks of editing the overall project and this is the last remaining problem to solve.
Well I tried adding the MultiEnvelopeShaper plugin and using the String Airy preset and the process of cutting the plosives to a 2nd track with the bass rolled off at 250, I pretty much was able to get a much better result. First time using this plugin. I never got to deal with the side chaining curiousity, as it worked without having to learn that feature.
A few I had to ramp up the fade in for the section, but I like to avoid that since there’s a crowd in the background and it becomes very obvious that the sound dropped out and faded in for a single word in time. Too much of that can get very annoying, like going in and out of focus on a video too much.
Any thoughts form experienced users on other options you have found successful would be nice to learn.
We can save the conversation about techniques on how to record talking or using various types of mics and pop filters/screens, etc. That’s a bit different than my objective which is ‘fixing it in the mix’ after the damage is already done.
(note: I had no control of the camera man’s mic when this was done. But will tell them for the future to improve the mic and use either a boom with a pop filter/screen/fur or a better quality interview mic than the one they used for this one.
Since you have already done the hard work of cutting all the plosives and bringing them to a new track … have you tried simply reducing the volume of plosive track, and replacing?
PS No new mic needed for camera man, he just needs to not be 0 degrees face on, right in the plosive air stream, if he’s going to be so close. Just a few degrees left/right up/down should work.
Thanks, but that doesn’t work (volume adjustments) in fact after you treat it you have to turn it up a little so it doesn’t sound like you ‘ducking’ the consonent. After a couple hundred fixes that gets too wierd as I stated, like a video getting blurry and then sharp over and over. But thanks for the shot at it. The tech I used took care of 90% and then the really bad ones I had to use the volume fade in to smooth out the harsh attack on a some. Overall, it’s workable now. Before it was not.
Mic angles are always critical, but when you have a pretty actress interviewing 100 musicians in 1 hour without a boom guy or a lavalier, the mic is going to move and you’re going to get plosives unless you have a great windscreen and mic combo, especially outdoors with a little wind noise mixed in every once in a while. (Red Carpet at a the beginning of event). Many height differences too creates less control as the actress is going from her to the person being interviewed.
Thanks peakae, but that’s what I explained up above. It works sometimes. When I added the MultiEnvelopeShaper plugin then I got a higher percentage of success. Again, my audio was someone talking and not in rhythm like a singer would be doing and has other events going on in the track to disguise things a bit. With an interview, a blast of air is in the naked buff. You either get it to sound good, or you don’t.
So, yes this works, the other suggestions work, but they don’t do the highest percentage of fixes when you have many differnt types of voices (from large guys with lo voices to small gals with squeky hi voices) talking back to the interviewer.
I would say, that my problem is solved, unless someone else wants to submit something ‘new’ to the recording channel, editing window, group channel or master stereo out channel that hasn’t been brought up.
I’m glad that I brought the post to the list, as the suggestions are all great and needed to know by all of us wearing many hats in the ‘creative world’ we live in. And by posting my own question I had the courage to find my best solution so far. But if a better one comes up, I will jump at it.
Then i guess the only way is some spectral editing, with something like iZotope RX.
Are You using the highpass on the track or as shown in the video, on only the plosive parts ?