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I met with a client today who was looking to try and salvage some of the audio they recorded for a documentary. They were using a Rode videomic for Interior and Exterior, and the handling noise that came out is incredible. I suggested that there was very little that could be done outside of majorly editing the footage, but I figured I would ask on here.

So does anybody have any experience of successfully dealing with Handling noises in Post?

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From my experience with dialogue editorial, you're usually SOL when it comes to this - the problem being that handling noise tend to fill all frequencies. Depending on how the frequency content is from what you're hearing, a hi pass may help you, automated of course, but even then usually such noise sits too high into the mid-lows and mids (like a plosive) that the rolloff will then have a huge affect upon your actual sound content. The other thing is to cut it out piece by piece, find replacement words, syllables, etc with alts (or even stolen from other lines) as needed. This is one of the hallmarks of successful dialogue editorial, done carefully to be as transparent as possible.

There is no such thing as a free lunch for getting good results with a dialogue track, especially so with a case like this. The more well-edited and strategic those edits are, the more success there will be with processing options on the stage. So my guess is that your best bet will be (assuming there's no ADR options) rolling up your sleeves and doing some creative edits.

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Izotope RX all day long. Spectral repair and replace does an amazing job.

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Seconding RX. Massive satisfaction when it works for the presenting noise types.

Note, it can be a long haul depending on the shape and tonality of the noise. I imagine the handling noise issue being quite invasive.

Here's an Isotope demo of high frequency removal. Not representational of handing noise but it's an intro. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qwdECSt3qX4&feature=player_embedded

And another with a Declipping example: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FsYCpnGNgAo&list=PL0CE41F83D2BC1BDF&index=9

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another +1 for RX, but in addition to that, anyone using a Rode Videomic for documentary work needs to be put up against a wall and shot.

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