Subject:Help with a school sound file

Posted by: davexnet

Date:12/16/2003 6:09:36 PM

Hello all,
I captured the analog video of my son's school holiday performance,
video's OK, but I'm wondering if the sound can be improved.
Picked up by the camera mic from about 25 feet, in a large school auditorium.
For now, I fixed the dc offset, and normalized to about 98%. Here's a
1.5MB sample (9 seconds) as modified per the above:
http://home.comcast.net/~davetest/school_clip.wav

I attempted EQ. I sloped off 80Hz and below, and boosted the midrange
a little. It was different, but not sure if it was better (I didn't keep these mods)
What do you think? In general, is this kind of low-res file beyond serious
improvement?
cheers,
Dave

Subject:RE: Help with a school sound file

Reply by: Chienworks

Date:12/16/2003 7:26:50 PM

I was expecting to hear a lot of reverberation, but it really wasn't that bad. The thing i found the most objectionable was the extreme level of compression. Every time the bells ring the rest of the sound pretty much disappears, then jumps back up when the bells fade. Did you do any compressing after the fact? If so, i would suggest doing a lot less of it. However, i suspect that a lot of the compression was probably done by the camera's auto-level control.

Subject:RE: Help with a school sound file

Reply by: davexnet

Date:12/16/2003 9:16:10 PM

Hello, thanks for responding. unfortunately, the compression
*is* like that, I didn't do it - probably the camera doing the best it
can under the circumstances.
Yes, lucky with the reverb. Partly, I think, because the auditorium has
enough stuff around, on the walls etc, to deaden the sound a little.
cheers,
Dave