Any way to make the sound better on this short video?

June 8, 2024 9:01 AM

I'm going to present this video at a Zoom presentation on Monday. It started life as part of a VHS tape (in 1990). Then I had it digitized. Is there anyway to improve the sound (by Monday morning)? I have Audacity if that helps. And a PC laptop. And an iPad.
posted by DMelanogaster to Media & Arts (5 answers total)

I dabble in audio editing, so someone who is more experienced may have a better answer, but here his my take:

Listening to the short clip, it sounds like there is a consistent background static that you may want to remove. Since you can get a clean version of that sound when the speaker pauses, you should be able to, IIRC, use this approach in Audacity to reasonable effect. I did something similar 5 or so years ago to reduce the sound of an HVAC system in the background of a podcast I was doing. It didn't remove it completely, but lessened it reasonably well.
posted by chiefthe at 9:08 AM on June 8 [3 favorites]

Best answer: You could use Audacity's Denoise function to get rid of most of the hiss, but unless Audacity let's you open up a video file (I haven't used it in years, and I know it was recently brought out so they may have added features) you'd have to export the audio, bring it in to Audacity, then re-export it and bring it back in to your video software.

I would suggest downloading the free version of Davinci Resolve and loading the video into there, then going into the audio section (it's called "Fairlight") and then using their built-in de-noise plugin on the audio track. It does a good job. And it's free. And it saves you from all the back and forth if you were to use Audacity.

A big problem with the audio is that there's occasionally a delayed version of the dialog in the background. There's really no way to get rid of that.

I don't think the audio is that bad. Denoising it will certainly help a bit. Yo could also boost the low end a bit, which will just make it a bit more pleasant to listen to.
posted by jonathanhughes at 11:42 AM on June 8

Including (human-generated) closed captions with your showing will also help compensate for the audio quality.
posted by oceano at 3:32 PM on June 8 [4 favorites]

You can use the iZotope noise removal plugins with Audacity, sorta.

RX Elements is on sale with a few other plugins for $80 as Elements Suite 9.

Or they have free trials, but I'm not sure if they insert any noise or silence.

Reaper is $60 for a personal license, if Audacity doesn't work. (Quite a deal given its capabilities.) And their trial is fully functional, so you can use it for this first and see what you think.
posted by snuffleupagus at 7:51 AM on June 9

You can also use the iZotope denoise and dialog repair plugins directly in DaVinci Resolve, if you go that route.

Here's iZotope's separate 'Voice Enhancement Assistant" plugin sales page, which is cheaper than the bundle, and could be used with a built-in denoiser.

It may not have all the dialog repair features of Elements, or of the full iZotope RX product (if its trial is functional).
posted by snuffleupagus at 7:55 AM on June 9