Advanced Audio Restauration

Question

Hi colleagues.

I was asked from a client to repair an audio track from a recorded TV show (6 years ago).

you can listen to a snippet, here: http://bit.ly/Qkvs5n

I listened to it a i know, there is no chance to get this audio sounding good. self- sufficient i tried a bit in iZotopes RX2 to get something repaired, but in my eyes (ears) there´s no chance. The problem within this audiofiles is, that it doesn´t clip. There are some sort of massively distortions in the voice concerned the whole frequency range. And in my opinion, this file is, as it is.....

But i think more ears an minds think and know things different. so, maybe i´ve overseen something and you have a good idea to repair this stuff..

Answer 1

Wow. First, yes, there's only so much you'll be able to do. I don't know of any quick ways of dealing with this, so if you're going to improve it any, it'll take a lot of time (as far as I know).

I tried messing around with it in RX2 (basic). I wasn't able to get anything worthwhile with the main plugins either.

Your biggest problem is basically with the sibilants (s, z, ß) and some 'f's. The rest of it isn't in great shape at all, but it appears to be listenable. As far as I know, you'll have to go about this on a consonant-by-consonant basis. To do that, I'd use EQ and gain reduction on each of them where needed. If you're using RX, the ability to edit spectrally can take care of some of the more annoying frequencies that stand out.

Taking a look at what you gave, for example, the first "f" is pretty easy to improve a bit by using a lowpass filter on it at about 9kHz. I then trimmed its gain down by 6dB.

The other consonants will take more work, though.

Going about it like this won't get a result that is in any way perfect, but it would improve it.

Good luck!

Answer 2

No, no stems. This audio is copied from the tv or whatever recording. The picture is as bad, as the audio. I extracted it from the quicktime.

Answer 3

I would investigate the CEDAR Cambridge, you will never have a perfect track, but you will definitely be able to improve it.

http://www.cedaraudio.com/products/cambridge/cedarcambridge_options.html

Answer 4

Hm.. thanks for your response. i think i have not the time and my client not the money to get rid of this....the client has to live with that quality....the whole article is about 5 minutes long, so it would last endlessly to recover this audio track.