I’ve been tasked to edit some raw audio and I’m a bit of a rookie to the whole sound editing thing.
So far, all has gone well except I have no idea how to remove unwanted thumps and bumps (like someone bumping the mic accidentally).
I will be reluctant to give out the sound file, so can anyone tutor me on removing these types of unwanted noises.
Much appreciated.
Irroh
If the show is spoken word, you can use Steve’s custom equalizer software. That suppresses thumps, bumps, P-Popping and other rumbly sounds.
Doesn’t work if you’re musical. This trick stops working the instant somebody starts singing.
So what are you doing? What’s the show?
There’s another variation where you only apply the rumble filter at the exact instant somebody bumps a mic stand. How good are you at zooming and selecting tiny parts of the timeline?
http://www.kozco.com/tech/audacity/Documents/LF_rolloff_for_speech.xml.zip
Unzip that to LF_rolloff_for_speech.xml
Adding equalizer curves to Audacity is kind of a pain.
Adding Audacity Equalization Curves
– Select something on the timeline.
– Effect > Equalization > Save/Manage Curves > Import
– Select LF_rolloff_for_speech.xml > OK. (it won’t open the ZIP. You have to decompress it)
– LF rolloff for speech now appears in the equalization preset curve list.
Then. Assuming you want to thump filter the whole performance.
LF Rolloff (rumble filter)
– Select the whole clip or show by clicking just above MUTE.
– Effect > Equalization: LF Rolloff for speech, 8191 Length > OK
If you have a good sound system (of course you do. You can’t do any of these jobs on crappy speakers), you should notice a significant drop in the thumps and rumbles. The voices may also lose a little of their force and authority.
The variation is to zoom in to each thump, select it and apply that filter only to the thump.
If it’s a long performance, you could be there a while.
Koz
A very common newbie mistake is to make corrections and patches on top of the original performance by using only one filename.
Always make a safety copy of the raw performance. There should be zero reason to ever tell anybody they need to perform again because you messed up or lost the sound files.
Suppose, for example, I told you the last effect you used cause damage and you needed to remove it. You can’t remove sound effects (after you close Audacity), you have to go back to an earlier version of the show. Can you?
Koz
Thanks for the reply.
The show is a podcast, so spoken word. The hosts are looking for editors so they can focus on bringing more content.
I’ve managed to isolate the thumps themselves and fiddled around with the tools looking for a solution. Only thing I managed to do was cut out the sound completely, but that’s the equivalent of putting censoring over the top.
I will give these techniques a try and see if I run into any mishaps.
And yes, I do have a saved copy of the raw content, it was the first thing I did when I got it, but thanks for your concern.
Cheers.
Certainly if you’re that far along, applying Steve’s rumble filter over the pops should help a lot. Most of the natural environment sound stays, so nobody should be able to tell what you did.
A much more involved method is copy and paste room tone or normal sound over the thump. That’s much harder to match.
I do have a saved copy of the raw content
You’d be surprised the number of people who don’t do that. That can lead to an effect the video people call the Reshoot Filter.
Koz
Hi. What is “Steve’s rumble filter”, and how do I get it? Is this an Lv2 plugin? Or do I need to download it?