Hello Eldor,

Welcome to the AudioDirector forum

After you've imported your clip into ADR, click on the Restore tab. You'll find Hum Removal listed second from the bottom of the adjustment panel.

It would be worth testing the different modes available to see which works best with your particular hum issue.

PIX PIX YouTube channel

Thank you very much, Pix, for the welcome and the pointer in the right direction. Restore, huh? Dumb me, I thought that was to restore the audio to original state after perhaps messing it up with wrong adjustments.

Quick test didn't seem to remove the hum. I'll have to dig deeper with this.

Thank you!

Eldor,

Perhaps you could upload a sample of the audio clip containing the hum. Memebers could test & provide suggestions about the best settings to apply.

What hum removal typically does is isolate the particular frequency (of the hum) and edit that.

It may be necessary to install the VST plug-in suggested by JL_JL in the PowerDirector thread. He appears to have had some success with it previously.

Compatible VST plug-ins can be installed to enhance ADR's capability.

PIX PIX YouTube channel

Pix (and anyone interested) I'm a total weenie with audio editing (and not all that much further ahead with video editing in general) and I did upgrade to PD Ultimate Suite yesterday with AudioDirector included. All that for trying to get the hum out of my little video.

I'm afraid I'm lost. The help PDF isn't all that helpful in terms of the mechanics of getting rid of hum. I appreciate your suggestion that I upload a bit of my clip to see what you and other members suggest, but before doing that, could you perhaps take a look at the screen shot I'm attaching?

I got so far as to bring the clip into AD, identify and select a range which has only the hum and then using the Advanced mode of the Hum Removal, Analysed the clip. And I have no idea what the result means or what I should be trying to do with the result.

Or is there some kind of beginner's guide to hum removal you might point me to?

Thanks very much!

When I'm at that point (screen shot) one thing I really don't understand is the Hum button (and the Preview button).

It seems to me that they're reversed... I would expect the Preview button to give me the audio WITHOUT the hum and correction applied, and the Hum button to let me listen to the hum without the correction. It's the opposite!

When I click on Preview, I get the full hum. When I click on Hum, I get (depending on the setting) almost total silence.

Is that the way it should work? How do I get what the Hum button gives me to apply to my clip?

And here's a few second clip of the audio hum I'm trying to eliminate. I left just the smallest amount of voice at the beginning and end but the middle is all hum.

I hope someone here would be kind enough to teach me what I should be doing.

Thanks very much!

For something that simple I'd probably just use Noise Reduction in AD. Hard to give a real answer as clip has very little real sound to see what you don't want to remove.

1. Launch AD from clip in timeline that needs noise filtering
2. Restore
3. Noise Reduction > Noise Reduction
4. Select small area of just noise
5. Analyze
6. Next
7. Apply to whatever you wish

Jeff

Sample audio of above steps applied to whole clip attached.

Jeff, thank you so much for your helpful effort. I'd already tried what you suggest, and while it did remove a lot of the noise (not all of it), it also made the voice sound really hollow.

I'm attaching a fuller section of that noisy clip so you (all) could hear what the voice sounds like, hear the noise, etc.Hum removal didn't make any noticeable difference (but that could be because I don't really know how to use it properly). Noise reduction did the best job, but still IMHO it's not an acceptable result overall.

Somehow I don't think I'm going to be able to rescue that clip. But it sure would be nice to figure out what caused it, and maybe how to deal with it in the future.

Cheers!

Jeff,

Thank you very much for sharing your obvious expertise with audio editing. The suggestion to use noise reduction rather than hum removal yielded reasonable results. Like Eldor, I was unable to remove the "hum" completely & it left the voice sounding "tinnier" but it was an improvement.



Eldor,

I don't mind admitting that I'm a very long way from having any real expertise with audio editing, so we're fotunate indeed to have contributors of Jeff's calibre here. I don't know what caused the hum in the recording but there could be a variety of factors. e.g. I was once recording a VO track via a desktop mic and found the hum was caused by an external hard drive running (it was on the same desk about 1m away). Your recording suffers from the mic being too far from the speaker to pick up a clear signal. Is it possible to record it again with a corrected recording environment?

Jeff may be able to offer further advice on possible causes and how to further improve the voice quality after noise reduction.



PIX

Hmm. I'm having difficulty having that screenshot appear in the forum page. It's there in the reply preview. PIX YouTube channel

PIX,

Is there something in particular you want me to see in the screen shot you attached?

I already said that I'd used Noise Reduction and that it eliminated the hum, but it also turned the voice part rather "tinny".

Do you (or anyone else here) have a suggestion about how to make the voice sound fuller after using the noise reduction?

At this point it's for the learning experience only, as I've decided to trash that clip (and entire video) because it was my first attempt at multi-camera editing and while it's alright, now that I know more there are other ways I'd like to do it.

I don't think you will ever get this audio to sound excellent for an instructional video which it sounds like you are making. It's just not worth the time and effort. The audio has simply too much noise in the human speech frequency range to properly filter it out without affecting the voice. I don't think it's lights as suggested, the 60Hz hum and harmonics at all. That is surely present in this audio but it is not the source of the major audible noise. That effect can easily be removed in AD with the Hum tool with harmonics. What you have is very broad band noise, when you select a section of this noise to get a profile for AD to filter out it will have significant effect on voice as the frequency content is overlaying speech frequency content so it can't be easily separated. Any chance you had like a room AC vent or air circulation system or the like near the camera? I'd find the source of the noise in the area your filming and correct that.

For an instructional video, I'd strongly suggest a lapel microphone or a camera mounted shotgun mic with isolation.

Jeff

Terrific, helpful reply, Jeff. Thank you!

I had four cameras going in the same room at the same time, a Sony RX100III, Canon Powershot G7x, Fuji X-E2 and a dedicated video camera, the Canon Vixia HF R62. It was only the Sony which picked up that noise. Fortunately I was able to use the audio from the other cameras for other scenes, but for this opening scene I only had the Sony going, so no audio from other cameras.

But later, when all cameras were going, it was only the Sony which picked up this noise. Either it's way more sensitive than the other cameras, or it's just not as good. SHRUG

Please tell me about lapel mic options. Are they wireless? Would they be sending audio to one of the cameras, or would you be recording the audio separately and then having to add it to the video? Is there a relatively inexpensive lapel mic system that you have experience with and can recommend?

I had already ordered a camera mounted shotgun mic through AliExpress but I have no idea what quality it will be... quite cheap though. But a lapel mic does sound like the best solution for the future. Just need some advice about what to buy.

Cheers!

I have a wireless 2 channel mic that was fairly inexpensive. It plugs directly into a camera. You can try Adorama, and B&H.
In addition you can get a Zoom (or similar), put it in the speakers pocket, and plug a second lavalier into it. So the talent now would have 2 lapel mics. Wired and wireless. Belt and suspenders solution.
You rarely get a second chance, so get it right.

http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/buy/Lavalier-Wireless-Systems/ci/12935/N/4232861985 my wireless system.

Sound is incredibly important and will set your video apart from hacks. HP Envy Phoenix/4thGen i7-4770(4@3.4GHz~turbo>3.9)
Nvidia GTX 960(4GB)/16GB DDR3/
Canon Vixia HV30/HF-M40/HF-M41/HF-G20/Olympus E-PL5.
Tape capture using 6 VCR, TBC-1000, Elite BVP4+, Sony D8 camcorder with TBC.
https://www.facebook.com/BarryAFTT

Read reviews and go on Youtube, balance price with performance. HP Envy Phoenix/4thGen i7-4770(4@3.4GHz~turbo>3.9)
Nvidia GTX 960(4GB)/16GB DDR3/
Canon Vixia HV30/HF-M40/HF-M41/HF-G20/Olympus E-PL5.
Tape capture using 6 VCR, TBC-1000, Elite BVP4+, Sony D8 camcorder with TBC.
https://www.facebook.com/BarryAFTT

Thanks Barry. Is yours the $144 one?

Before you replied I started a new thread on the PDR13 board asking for recommendations for lapel mics. With the seemingly little traffic on this section I didn't think I'd get an anwer here (and certainly not so quickly).

I'd already found one on B&H: http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/999979-REG/polsen_cam_2w_g1_2_channel_vhf_camera_mount.html but was hoping to spend even less money. But if I have to, I guess I will.

Cheers!

That effect can easily be removed in AD with the Hum tool with harmonics. What you have is very broad band noise, when you select a section of this noise to get a profile for AD to filter out it will have significant effect on voice as the frequency content is overlaying speech frequency content so it can't be easily separated. Any chance you had like a room AC vent or air circulation system or the like near the camera? I'd find the source of the noise in the area your filming and correct that.???/ GuL

I once had a refridgerator kick on/off in a video, that's a lesson right there, unplug it! Remember to plug it in again, though. HP Envy Phoenix/4thGen i7-4770(4@3.4GHz~turbo>3.9)
Nvidia GTX 960(4GB)/16GB DDR3/
Canon Vixia HV30/HF-M40/HF-M41/HF-G20/Olympus E-PL5.
Tape capture using 6 VCR, TBC-1000, Elite BVP4+, Sony D8 camcorder with TBC.
https://www.facebook.com/BarryAFTT

I wasn't able to rescue that clip... Yes I could remove the hum but it also (badly) affected the voice. And I wasn't shooting that over. So I chalked it up to learning experience.

Funny, I had 4 cameras going (it was really an effort to practice sync'ing them all) and only one had the hum. I've gone back and tested, and still now only the one camera picks up the hum. (That camera was a Sony RX100III, and the others were Canon PowerShot G7x, Fuji X-E2 and Canon Vixia HF 62.)

I've bought a Rode SmartLav+ and I now use it with my iPhone to record the speaker's voice. And it works REALLY well. Much much better than using any of those cameras to record the sound.

Quote: That effect can easily be removed in AD with the Hum tool with harmonics. What you have is very broad band noise, when you select a section of this noise to get a profile for AD to filter out it will have significant effect on voice as the frequency content is overlaying speech frequency content so it can't be easily separated. Any chance you had like a room AC vent or air circulation system or the like near the camera? I'd find the source of the noise in the area your filming and correct that.???/