How to match lav mic audio and 2nd on-camera audio quality?

prairiedogpics wrote on 5/20/2004, 1:49 PM

Be gentle, I'm an audio newbie.
I have Vegas 5 and recently did my first two camera shoot. The main stationary camera (A) recorded audio via a wireless lav transmitter to a reciever plugged directly into the camera. That audio is great. The "roving camera" (B) was a digicam recording its audio just from the on-camera mic (for synching purposes).
Unfortunately, at one point, I taped over the camera A's footage, and therefore I have to use camera B's audio in the project for this very short section. The audio quality between camera A and camera B is very different, obviously (with camera B being WORSE, as it is the on-camera audio).

What Audio tools contained in Vegas 5 would you typically use to try to bring the audio quality/feel of camera B as close as possible to the better audio of camera A (aside from raising the gain). I'm not sure how to "sweeten" it so viewers might not be able to sense the difference (for a brief period of time). Where to begin. Basic audio steps?

Thanks,
Dan

Comments

BrianStanding wrote on 5/20/2004, 2:07 PM

Tough task! I've struggled with this in the past and have acheived acceptable (but not perfect) results. A lot of trial and error. I'm sure SPOT or some of the other audio wiz's may have better recipes, but this is what's worked for me.

If you have Sound Forge, the Acoustic Mirror plug-in attempts to give two disparate sound files the same "color." I'd start with this. If I recall correctly, the help file for the Acoustic Mirror describes how to use a standard noise signal to develop a signature sound characteristics for different mikes, etc.

Noise Reduction may also be helpful, if you need to isolate your subject against higher background noise. You can also try mixing some ambient noise from your good audio (subject not talking) under the post-Noise Reduction dialog track. This may help mask the difference in sound quality, especially if you can do a long, gentle fade in and out.

I'd also try twiddling with the equalization, levels, and noise gate filters until you get something close.

If the audio is completely unsalvageable, you may have to cut around it. Go to a cutaway and trim out the offending section. I hope you got some good reaction shots to cover the edit!

MJhig wrote on 5/20/2004, 2:12 PM

Red gave you about as basic an answer over on the Audio Forum as could be expected since both question and answer are based on written word only.

There are no basic steps really, it all depends on the source/s and the desired results. To put this in visual terms your question is like asking "I have color A, it sucks compared to my color B. How do I make color A more like color B?"

The best method with this type of thing is to upload SMALL representative samples say about 1 minute of 128 kbps MP3s each and point to the link.

MJ

riredale wrote on 5/20/2004, 2:55 PM

I've found that if I do a longish overlap of one audio source transitioning into another the audience often doesn't notice the difference, or doesn't care. It would still be worth some effort trying to get the two sounds reasonably similar.

baysidebas wrote on 5/21/2004, 7:52 AM

For future consideration:

You can have as many wireless receivers as you want, all fed from the single transmitter. I've made it a practice to override only one channel with the wireless signal, recording the second from the camera microphone, that's belt AND suspenders. If you can afford it, put a receiver on a DAT machine. If dealing with a FOH (front of house) audio system, ALWAYS record from the mixer's output.