Removing Cars in background?

[trspballer7]

I am in the sound editing stage of my film, The Warmth of Blood, and I know I am going to have to do some adr because I shot in locations where the cars were very loud. But there are some locations where it is indoors, but you can hear the cars faintly. So what I ask is, is there any filter in final cut pro where you can just cut out a specific low frequency? and if not, Will it be enough to just cover them with room tone and music, or am I just going to have to do adr for all of it?

Thanks.

[thepie]

Play around with the low cut filter until you can get rid of the cars.

[google550]

Do you have Soundtrack? Which comes with Final Cut Studio?

[Jonathan Gum]

Do you have Soundtrack? Which comes with Final Cut Studio?

Soundtrack Pro comes with Final Cut Studio 2 I'm sure of that but what does that have anything to do with the topic?

[gonzo_entertainment]

I'd also throw out, how loud are they (on interiors). The world of your movie doesn't have to be a vacuum. If there is not reason you for sure would not hear cars in the distance, there may be a rationale to just leave them in.

[google550]

Soundtrack Pro comes with Final Cut Studio 2 I'm sure of that but what does that have anything to do with the topic?

Because if he has it, he can take a noise print and reduce the audio that way. But if he doesn't have it, it's not worth my time to explain.

[knightly]

I'll explain for him, since others may read the thread looking for the information:

Soundtrack Pro is the application bundled with Final Cut Studio 1&2 that does high end audio work.

To remove a specific frequency, you would use a notch filter... the procedure is to:

adjust the gain on the filter as high as it goes while previewing the clip you want to filter...

The "Q" needs to be as low as possible (to target only the frequency you want to remove...

Scrub the frequency until the noise you want to remove is REALLY loud...

Drop the gain as low as it will go...

Adjust the "Q" to get the surrounding frequencies without grabbing too much that other stuff disappears.


This technique works in any application that has frequency filtering as they are all based on old analog equipment in function. The filters you can use are called "Notch" or "Band" filters.

The Low cut mentioned above will take everything from a determined frequency down and remove it (hence the name) and the High cut does the opposite.

Human Hearing goes from 20hz to 20khz, so cutting above and below those right away will decrease your eventual exported file size as the file no longer has to store any of that information. The human voice has a frequency range from 300hz to 3400hz, so if your audio is supposed to be only voice, you can set your low and high cut frequencies to those (Men will tend to be lower, women higher, but there are potential resonances within the whole range).

This should get you started on the whole frequency thing... every instrument has its own frequency range that can be targeted to isolate it from the rest of a sound track. Play, have fun.

Audacity is free, that has all these tools if you don't have a higher end audio editing program like soundtrack or protools and works just fine.

<side note>If you're not going to share information and teach, then you have no business getting knowledge from here for free. The whole point of these forums is to share knowledge... Other people come here to learn and can learn by your having taken the time to explain the stuff you say it's not worth your time to explain - Otherwise, go take film school and pay for the knowledge like everyone else throughout recent history.</side note>

[google550]

<side note>If you're not going to share information and teach, then you have no business getting knowledge from here for free. The whole point of these forums is to share knowledge... Other people come here to learn and can learn by your having taken the time to explain the stuff you say it's not worth your time to explain - Otherwise, go take film school and pay for the knowledge like everyone else throughout recent history.</side note>

I'm rather put off by that. I'm not a self-promoter, but if you've been around these forums at all you know that I'm not the type to take knowledge without giving. I have a great tendency to give suggestions, and I've written several page-long posts on various aspects of film making... The ones I can think of cover the topics of pre-production, chroma keying, the importance of room tone...

Not to mention countless other responses on various threads on these forums. So if the fact that I have four term papers and eight graded finals coming up in a couple of weeks, plus regents tests doesn't excuse me from typing up a long-winded explanation of something that, quite frankly, someone could look up on Google, then please, excuse my behavior. I'll just leave.

[trspballer7]

<side note>If you're not going to share information and teach, then you have no business getting knowledge from here for free. The whole point of these forums is to share knowledge... Other people come here to learn and can learn by your having taken the time to explain the stuff you say it's not worth your time to explain - Otherwise, go take film school and pay for the knowledge like everyone else throughout recent history.</side note>


Thanks a lot.

and p.s. is that side note directed towards me? cause I feel Like I help the community.

[google550]

Thanks a lot.

and p.s. is that side note directed towards me? cause I feel Like I help the community.

No. That was to me.

[trspballer7]

I'd also throw out, how loud are they (on interiors). The world of your movie doesn't have to be a vacuum. If there is not reason you for sure would not hear cars in the distance, there may be a rationale to just leave them in.


Well the movie takes place after the apocalypse, so there aren't that many running cars left, let alone enough for a busy highway.

[chainedflesh]

Iuse adobe audition for working with sound... I have found that the sound filters in that are pretty good.

You could try playing around with different audio filters, maybe use some sound profiles of the cars to help with cleanup.

You could also just turn down the audio totally between dialogue and then add your own nat sound to help disguise it. Maybe some wind and maybe some overdubbing. This is a hard thing to compensate for because all audio has different qualities that make it a pain to cleanup.

[knightly]

Yes, that was to Google, who really does help the community alot... but the "it's not WORTH my time to explain it." is much different than "I don't have time to explain it right now." as you intimated in the next post.

Words are powerful and I'll reiterate my statements form other threads, to wit: This is supposed to be a supportive community and careless use of the English language will dissuade younger members from pursuing this wonderful craft and creative outlet. Thick skin be damned, it's necessary in the real world, not in a learning environment - which is what this is.

[google550]

Words are powerful and I'll reiterate my statements form other threads, to wit: This is supposed to be a supportive community and careless use of the English language will dissuade younger members from pursuing this wonderful craft and creative outlet. Thick skin be damned, it's necessary in the real world, not in a learning environment - which is what this is.

Fair enough.

[cyrax037]

I'll explain for him, since others may read the thread looking for the information:

Soundtrack Pro is the application bundled with Final Cut Studio 1&2 that does high end audio work.
~SNIP~


I have a question. What is it you mean by "Q"?

I'm working on cleanin up the analog tape recordings of the songs from my theater's show. There is a bit of a hum in the background, and I'd like to take that out, and bring up their vocals and such. I've done it fairly well before, but any tips you might have, would be most appreciated! I'm using Diamond Cut 7.

I don't want to hijack this topic tho. If the info will be beneficial to the original poster, that's fine, but I don't want to hijack it from him, so you could pm me if it will get too off track.

Thanks.