"Keep residual ouput" saves the day.

farss wrote on 7/13/2010, 6:04 AM
Client had a video of someone foot painting on a sheet of plastic. Needed to add new music and she wanted to keep the sound of the plastic sticking to the feet. Problem was that sound was mixed with the music that the artists were working to.
No amount of Eq was really doing the job of keeping the crunchy, clicky sound of the plastic while killing the music. Then it occured to me that the sound I wanted to keep was very much the same as the clicks on a vinyl record.
Applied click removal to the track and ticked the "keep residual output" box and there it was, enough of the transients from the plastic sheet to add that little bit of presence to the vision.
Probably not a trick one would use more than once in a lifetime so probably worth a mention to file away in the bottom draw.

Bob.

Comments

Guy S. wrote on 7/13/2010, 12:16 PM
Great tip, thanks for sharing!

Guy
Laurence wrote on 7/13/2010, 1:26 PM
Cool idea. I guess you could use this technique to get room tone when you forgot as well. ;-)
John_Cline wrote on 7/13/2010, 1:32 PM
"I guess you could use this technique to get room tone when you forgot as well."

Not unless your room tone consisted of a bunch of clicking...
Laurence wrote on 7/13/2010, 1:45 PM
Actually, I've separated continuous sound like air condition and kitchen refridgerators humming in the background. It sounded like room tone and not just clicking. I usually try to just get rid of that sort of thing though.
John_Cline wrote on 7/13/2010, 2:13 PM
Well, yes, you can use the same general technique (Keep residual output) but not the specific technique; declicking plugin. I realize that you mean separating continuous noise using a noise reduction plugin like Izotope RX or Sony's Noise Reduction 2.0.
alltheseworlds wrote on 7/13/2010, 3:01 PM
Very interesting solution. Just as an example of lateral thinking it was worth the read :-)
AGB Productions wrote on 7/13/2010, 4:26 PM
I could see that this technique might be useful for some of the tap-dance or Irish step-dance functions we occasionally encounter.

The objective would be to keep the music track intact (probably coming from a CD or someone's iTunes*) because there would be less room and distance distortion, then add the residuals to get the tapping sound. Might this work?

* Yes, I know, those of you from the law firm of Dewey, Cheatem and Howe, there's this little copyright issue on the music track ... but that's another story ...

farss wrote on 7/13/2010, 5:57 PM
I could see that this technique might be useful for some of the tap-dance or Irish step-dance functions we occasionally encounter.

Worth a shot.
How I (try) to handle this is using boundary mics at the front of the stage. You can buy them pretty cheap on eBay for around $50, no need to spend a fortune on the expensive ones.

Bob.

Chienworks wrote on 7/13/2010, 7:02 PM
Quite right. Boundary mics are great for picking up stage sounds. I had a set of 8 of them from Radio Shack that were actually Crown rebranded for about $70 each. Cut the 1/4" plug off the end and replace them with an XLR connector and they became mighty fine mics!

Sadly, the last time the local college borrowed them they mysteriously disappeared, and Radio Shack doesn't sell them anymore.
AGB Productions wrote on 7/14/2010, 1:00 PM
Boundary mikes are great for that purpose, and for picking up the dialogue of some un-miked talent. They probably would have been better than last weekend's event, where we used three Zoom H-4's and a couple of iRiver iFP790's with external mikes, mounted on stage curtains. You work with what you got, and we didn't have boundary mikes.