Miracle Needed For Audio... iZotope Rx?

jrazz wrote on 7/19/2011, 10:06 AM
I have a friend who filmed his first concert this past weekend. He brought me this sample clip and asked if there was anything I could do to help him. I don't have iZotope Rx as I haven't had a need for it, but I have heard its praises sung here often as a miracle worker for hopeless audio.

Would one of you who owns it mind giving this mp3 file a go and see if there is anything that can be done for it?

He was recording with one camera (Canon XL I believe) and a line coming into a mixer from the board that then went to his camera. I think what he did was see that the levels were within the acceptable range and thought he was okay when in reality the levels were okay coming into his camera as they were being limited but the audio was already peaked out before it made it to his mixer from the main board. This is all he has to work with.

I think he learned a lot from this and hopefully will not repeat the same mistakes in the future.

Any ideas would be appreciated. Here is the link.

j razz

Comments

FrigidNDEditing wrote on 7/19/2011, 10:38 AM
Nothing I've tried worked, I'm afraid. Working with iZotope RX2

Dave
Grazie wrote on 7/19/2011, 10:40 AM
Ouch!

That's terminal.

Grazie

Grazie wrote on 7/19/2011, 10:45 AM
Sounds like a line feed being fed into a mic with with preamps twanging away. Nasty.

Grazie

jrazz wrote on 7/19/2011, 11:04 AM
That's what I was afraid of. If anyone else has any ideas, feel free to share.

Thanks for trying Dave and Graham. I hope you guys are doing well. Graham, I prayed for you concerning your heartfelt post here not too long ago. I hope all is well.

j razz
Wadro65 wrote on 7/19/2011, 11:08 AM
Sounds like what I did before. I had the input on the camera set to Mic instead of line. Levels looked good but everything was blown out.
Grazie wrote on 7/19/2011, 12:49 PM
Yup, that'll do it everytime.

Grazie

johnmeyer wrote on 7/19/2011, 2:38 PM
I spent about five minutes looking at this, both in Sound Forge and in iZotope RX2. If the distortion was from clipping, which is what I would have expected from an overdriven amp, then it might be salvageable. However, from what I can tell, you have inter-modulation distortion, or at least something similar to that, and the harmonics don't lend themselves to being selected and then removed, something that RX2 can do. I tried applying some smoothing in Sound Forge, and it made it sound a little better, but it also made it sound muffled.

So, reluctantly, I have to agree with others that this may not be something which can be improved.
jrazz wrote on 7/20/2011, 6:26 AM
Thanks again guys. Looks like I will have to be there bearer of bad news. The help here is always appreciated.

j razz
baysidebas wrote on 7/20/2011, 8:05 AM
Can't be stressed enough and bears repeating (this from one who has been bitten by time pressures and trusting other indicators) ALWAYS check your audio on the recording device with your ears. Levels may look good on the meters but, as the hapless videographer here found out, be distorted. More insidious is hum or buzz in the audio that, while not detectable on the meters, makes the audio either totally unusable, or requires much fixing for less than optimal audio. Make a set of headphones standard equipment in your kit bag. AND USE THEM!!