rec.arts.movies.production.sound

wrote ...
> I agree, I found the first phrase method (Noise Reduction) the
> best.... it's like the song completely disappeared. There's an
> obvious drop in sound quality, but for 30 seconds of a documentary I
> can live with it.
>
> One thing, though, there isn't going to be an audible translation over
> the top, just text subtitles, so can you recommend any tips to make it
> sound even better?

YIKES! I thought you said that the sound would be under
a running translation. If the track isn't covered by something
else (like a translator) then you need to do a lot more work
to make it sound "halfway decent". It is possible that what it
would take is way beyond your resources (available software,
skill, budget to send it out, etc.) If I had understood that you
wanted to use it "bare", I wouldn't have been so quick to
recommend the techniques. But only you can make those
tradeoff decisions for your project.

> When you talk about the 90% room tone, did you just grab 2 seconds or
> so then loop it as a bed underneath it all at 90% volume?

No. Read the help files to see how the Noise Reduction feature
works. You start by selecting part of the recording that contains
ONLY the "background noise". I found some right near the end
of your example clip, between the last word, and the "clink" sound.
I used that to "train" the noise reduction what needed to be removed.
I didn't want the "clink" sound included because it is not a continuous
sound through the whole clip, so you don't want it to be "removed"
from the whole clip.

Then went back and used that "noise profile" to apply to the part
where the speech is. There is a slider control where you can
adjust how much noise reduction to apply. It is a tradeoff between
how much noise you can live with and how "metalic" the speech
sounds.

> And can you explain what you mean by "pink noise"?

It is one of the selections in the menu. Try it for yourself.
There is also "white noise" and "brown noise" (IIRC?)

If you mean "what is pink noise", it is easy enough to
look it up and you will get a much more complete
explanation than anyone here has the patience to type.