Problem with audio filters

[royphotog]

I have been using Media Studio Pro 8 for just about six months and this is my first post to this board. I am a professional photographer working in the wedding and portrait field and have just recently got back into doing video. (I started out in the mid 80s with an old VHS camera and separate recorder unit)

I have a video with a lot of static on the audio. I have accessed the audio filters and clicked on the "Remove Noise" filter but even at the lowest setting (1%) I loose all the sound from the track. Other filters seem to work fine. any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

[troppo]

i would recommend using a proper audio editor to remaster your audio. Something like adobe audition, or Audacity (it's free). MSP8 audio filters are quite rudimentary, and offer very little control. With a proper audio editor you can select precise frequencies etc for noise removal. However, you will lose some of the original soundtrack in any noise removal as it has to remove certain frequencies to remove the noise. Any portions of the original soundtrack on those same frequencies will be removed also.

[Devil]

Seems like your audio level may be too low, so that your signal-to-noise ratio is approaching unity. Very difficult to handle. I suggest you download Audacity and juggle with the level and noise-removal settings to try and improve it, but don't expect miracles; remember GIGO.

[asande]

I'll second the Audacity suggestion - it's really a great tool!

I've found that good audio is probably one of the hardest things th get when working with video, and has probably created the most problems for me in past projects.

I certainly don't have all of the answers, but try to individually wire my subjects when I can (with portable recorders and lapel microphones - not ideal, but it's getting a little better, and by investing in a shotgun mic for my DVC30). Getting everything synchronized is a bit of a job, but well worth the effort in the end...

Al