Newbie needs help!!...What is the best Audio enhancement software?

[hrhrudi]

Hi everyone,thanks for taking a minute to read my post.

I have just got married Couldn't afford a professional videographer for footage, so I used in-law's camcorder which turned out a bit rough!

Problem is, the wedding was outside. The camcorder was about 10 feet away from where I was standing for the ceremony saying my vows and it was quite a windy day.

The end result is that you can barely hear mine and my wife's words over the wind and any other noises going on and I want to try and find some software that will allow me to dissect/split the audio so I can either enhance the sounds of our voice or remove the obstructing sounds over our voices (or both)

Don't have much experience with video/audio editing software so a reasonably user friendly program would be ideal, but at the same time I want the most powerful/effective one there is, so all suggestions are welcomed.

Once I get that sorted, I want to do some video fading in/out. Fairly basic stuff I guess, but mentioned it in case there is an video/audio all in one package anyone can recommend?

Thanks for all your time and comments in advance!

[jaymac]

most Progs will do that some better or easier to work with than others best to download and tryout some . Magix movie edit pro10 plus, Adobe elements premiere 2 or 3 or Ulead movie factory alll available for free trying. Magix being more easier to get to grips with than AdobeI found but prefer Adobe.There are others which I'm sure wil be siggested afraid you will be spoilt for choice. If you can pick up either of the Video editing mags they usually have a disc with trials on them handy as they are large downloads. There are also dedicated forums for them all plenty of info out there.

[redsox_mark]

All video editing packages will have some audio capabilities. I'm a bore about liking Sony Vegas... but it did start out in life as an audio editor, so audio is a strength. It's got a bunch of effects that can be used - equalizers, filters, etc. You can try it out here
http://www.sonymediasoftware.com/pro...ct.asp?PID=408

Having said that, regardless of what editor you use it won't be easy or maybe possible to get the results you want. It's easy to amplify the track of course. But to remove wind or other noise - if this is at similiar frequencies as used for voice this is hard to do. If the wind was say a very low rumble, then you could remove the low frequencies and that would help without hurting the dialog much. But if it is howling wind at changing frequency, or worse yet other people closer to the camera talking, it is pretty much impossible to dissect/split as you suggest.

That's why in all the spy movies the spy turns on water so bugs can't hear clean dialog.... that is based on fact.

You're going to need an editor anyway to do the other stuff, so try some out and play with the various audio effects.. I'm sure you can improve the dialog, but don't expect a miracle.

[evans]

Have found that applying any type of filters for video/audio will cost you in Quality. Probably not worth it.

[jaymac]

Have to disagree in part there Evans . If there is dialogue or whatever in a shot and it is really needed then surely the ability to lift it out of the ambient noise to hear it overrides perfect quality. After all one criteria for absolute sound quality is the ability to record absolute silence.

[sbowler]

Cant you and the new missus redub the audio then add to the video footage?

[felix2]

A friend had to try and remove some pretty serious rumbling (bassy) wind noise from a bit of video recently. He exported the soundtrack from that section and put it into Sony (Sonic Foundry) Sound Forge audio editing software. He tried all sorts of different combinations of effects and processors, and ended up just using 1 low-cut filter (or 'high-pass' filter). This basically cut out everything below a certain, fairly sharply defined, low-ish frequency, and left in everything above it. He set the cut-off frequency by trial and error, and managed to cut out most of the low-pitch wind noise without affecting the speech too much. (It did sound just slightly like they were talking through a cheap old radio speaker, but it was a definite imrpovement on the original!) He then put it back with the video (in the same place, and it lined up back in synch again!).

As Mark said, if the noise you want to get rid of (wind, other people talking) is the same sort of frequency range as what you want to keep, then unfortunately there's not a great deal you can do.

If the low-cut filter would help, I think Sony do a free limited trial of Sound Forge. There's also a cut-down free version called Audacity, which may or may not do it. Or Sony Vegas Movie Studio Platinum, which is closely related to Sound Forge, is the best video editor for doing stuff to audio. It's also pretty intuitive for the video editing too!! Amazon and Maplin are currently doing special offers on it.

[redsox_mark]

Yes, with Sony Vegas you can add a high or low pass filter. I'm pretty sure Sony Vegas Movie Studio Platinum can do the same. Sound Forge can do more.