Comments

Chienworks wrote on 5/30/2008, 9:56 AM
Honestly? Do the interviews again with the speakers wearing lapel mics, or have the interviewer holding a handheld mic very close to the mouths of the speakers.

The problem with road noise is that it's inconsistent. There's very very little that can be done with it. Probably the only thing you can do is play with EQ, trying to emphasize the frequency range of the voices and diminish other frequencies. It won't help much.
busterkeaton wrote on 5/30/2008, 10:07 AM
If the background noise is all within a certain frequency, you can use EQ to pull down that certain frequency. This is usually good for background noise that is low frequency, such as the rumble of an air conditioner. However if the background noise changes, it's going to be much harder to do. For example if the background noise contains a sudden burst of car horns. Road noise is pretty variable, unfortunately because the source of the noise is moving.

Vegas allows for a very wide range of frequenices in the audio, but most of these do not apply to the human voice, so you could probably really pull the high and low frequencies out of the audio track.

Open up the audio Track FX, you'll see three filters already applied. To pull out the highs and lows, go to Track EQ. You'll see four EQ settings, use your mouse and pull numbers 1 and 4 down. Play around with how far down and how wide each filter is by using the sliders. You may also want to try to boost, the number 3 a bit.

If the voice is generally louder than the back ground noise, you can use the Track Noise Gate FX. Start sliding the threshold level up and see if you block out or "gate" the background noise. If you set the threshold too high, you will affect the audio you want to keep.

If this audio is very important to you, there is software you can buy that is used to remove audio noise.

In general when recording audio.
1. Try to get a clean audio as possible by keeping the mike close to the voice as possible and use a quiet location. This might require using a mike that is not on the camera.
2. When at any location, record the background sound and only the background sound (no cameraman footsteps, no director's whispering) for a minute or two. This is known as room tone. You use this in the background of your audio mix so that your sound edits sound smooth. You do this even indoors because a "quiet" room will have will have sounds. The human hear will filter these sounds our if you not focusing on them. Close your eyes for a minute and just listen and you will hear what I'm saying.

Clark153 wrote on 5/30/2008, 10:17 AM
Thanks for the help, much appreciated.
johnmeyer wrote on 5/30/2008, 11:30 AM
I am in the middle of a several-day audio restoration project. Historical stuff where I can't go back in time and re-record.

I agree with everything already said. You can't do much. However, you might want to download the iZotope RX trial and use the Denoiser contained in that program. You take a sample of the offending noise and it then subtracts it. If you've never used this sort of software you have to be VERY careful not to get carried away by turning up the noise reduction too far. At first it seems magical that everything has disappeared (even your road noise will seem to be diminished). However, if you listen closer, the main audio will start to sound really hollow. The trick is to apply just enough to take the "edge" off the offending sound without calling attention to the now somewhat artificial sound of your talent.

Try it and see. It may help a little and make the listening experience a little more enjoyable.