Reduce wind noise

Micke N wrote on 1/4/2006, 2:27 PM
I have some shots where I need to do something about the wind noise. I didn't use an external mic on these shots, unfortunately, but really want to keep the original sound. Except for the noise. Are there any plugins that do the job, that somewhat (badly or good) filter the noise? I've tried using equalizers but the result is not that good.

Any ideas?

/Micke N

Comments

techman05 wrote on 1/4/2006, 2:29 PM
Try posting this on the Vegas-Audio forum as well. As for the question, I'd suggest running through a noise filter.
jrazz wrote on 1/4/2006, 2:54 PM
Look for my post in this forum (click on my user name above) and look for one that says something about cricket background noise. There are a lot of suggestions on limiting that noise and they may be beneficial to you as well.

j razz
farss wrote on 1/4/2006, 3:18 PM
There's a lot you can do to limit the noise when recording. Once it's recorded, well you are kind of in trouble. The issue is that wind noise tends to be pretty broad spectrum, kill it and you loose most of what you want to keep as well. That's one of the reasons why it's so important to deal with it during the shoot. Lots of other noises can be dealt with in post but once the noise is broad spectrum in the same part of the band as what you want to keep how can anything determine the difference?
johnmeyer wrote on 1/4/2006, 6:36 PM
Wind noise is similar to "white noise" which means it has uniform frequency distribution. This in turn means that you can't filter our a specific set of frequencies. This means you can't use Noise Reduction or Notch Filters or any similar thing. A noise gate can sometimes help, but basically there is not much you can do.
richard-courtney wrote on 1/4/2006, 6:55 PM
As Bob and John have mentioned it is mostly too late.
You can try running SEVERAL passes with a very tight bandwidth notch filter.

The best solution was my wife's old winter hat.......
one of those fake fur things. The longer the hair the better. About ten minutes
of cutting and stitching (my finger and the fur cloth) made a very effective wind
sock. Even a built-in mic can be helped by covering with some fake fur.

You can also get creative and make a blimp for pole mics. You have seen
them at outdoor press conferences.

Some help on making your own can be found at:
http://www.wiremonkey.com/index.html
fldave wrote on 1/4/2006, 8:50 PM
"Wind noise is similar to "white noise" which means it has uniform frequency distribution."

Except in a hurricane. It contains the most eerie sounds you will ever hear. Chills down my spine still.

Of course I was outside in it, until the second tornado went overhead.

Edited: But then again, you wouldn't want to "fix" the wind noise in that circumstance, would you?
johnmeyer wrote on 1/5/2006, 12:06 AM
The sound of your heartbeat would have been pretty interesting to hear as well.
TorS wrote on 1/5/2006, 2:34 AM
The wind may be very similar to white noise, but chanses are that your signal (what you want to keep) is not. Find out its most important frequencies and try to keep them up while pulling everything else down. Try this in small steps over several passes. I would choose the paragraphic equalizer for this; other eq plugs may work as well.
The result will sound like a compromise, but you knew that already.

Second thought (and a good one, too): this coming from the camera mic, chanses are it is stereo. Find out if both channels are equally affected. Rightclick sound track, choose Channels > left only, right only, respectively.
If the camera has been panning a lot, you may want to duplicate the audio track, make one right only and one left only. Then you can filter them differently. Use Volume envelopes to shift dominance to the best track.
Tor