Audio Editors - Help?

Hey, so I made a little improvisation (amateur) short film and I used zoom h4N and Rode videomic but the scene was shot in a cheap restaurant with aircon on and annoying echo. I can't seem to clean it by myself I am not too good with audio editing (I'm an actor and do most of my film stuff by myself already - audio, not my thing), so was wondering if there are any good audio/sound editors who wouldnt mind helping with cleaning the audio? =/

I know it will be hard to find someone to do it free, but thought I try :)
 
A little air conditioning can be addressed - not cured, and not made perfect, but at least reduced - with careful noise removal. Reverb cannot. Further, without having heard any of your audio, I have to ask: where was your mic placed? If the mic wasn't in the right spot, there's not a whole lot that can be done to correct that in post.

You might find someone who can take it from awful to a little less awful, but once recorded you're kind of stuck with a lot of the issues you have.

If you can post a small sample, it might help us determine what, if anything, can be done.
 
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This is why I harp on production sound techniques so much - especially boom technique.

So have you learned any lessons? Such as turn the AC off or work as far away from it as you can. Such as get the mic in close and aimed properly.

I'm an actor and do most of my film stuff by myself...

This is also why I mention so frequently that filmmaking is a team sport, you cannot do it all on your lonesome; you must have help to achieve even minimal quality.


AcousticAl is right; you might find someone to take it from a bowl of diarrhea to a piece of shit, but that's probably the best they are going to do unless you want to spend huge amounts of money to make something approaching close tolerable.
 
can't seem to clean it by myself I am not too good with audio editing ...

First off, cleaning audio is not the job of an audio editor, it's the job of a re-recording mixer.

I agree with what the others have said but I'll elaborate a bit as you seem new to audio.

Cleaning dialogue is a bit like cleaning dirt off an old painted wall. If it just needs a light dusting then all well and good but if you've got to remove stains, the act of cleaning is going to remove a certain amount of the paint as well. You might have to scrub so hard that you remove all the paint (where the stain was) but even if you don't remove it all, the cleaned part is going to look obvious and bizarre compared to the rest of the wall. Best solution would be to repaint the entire wall (re-shoot the scene/s), as even just repainting the patch where the stain was (ADR) is going to be extremely difficult to colour match the aged paint of the rest of the wall. Of course, the more skilled/experienced the person cleaning the stains and the more sophisticated the tools they have, the more chance there is of an acceptable repair/cleaning but people with a lot of experience have to pay to own sophisticated tools in the first place, so there's going to be cost involved. And, even the most skilled restorer with the very best tools might not be able to do better than an obvious patch job.

As with paint, a lot depends on exactly how noisy (dirty) your dialogue is and the exact nature of the noise (stains). Aircon for example can be anything from a quiet hiss to any combination of broadband hums, rattles, clicks, buzzes and hiss and as AcousticAl mentioned, reverb/echo is usually even more difficult to deal with.

However, I too think you should post a sample for us to have a listen to. It might be that your dialogue is more easily salvaged than we're assuming or it might be completely unsalvageable but at least you'll know one way or the other.

G
 
You can try using Audacity for the air conditioner noise removal, but dont expect any miracles. Your best bet sounds like you should ADR it.
 
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