MediaSlap blog

Shhh … I’m listening

January 29, 2009

One of the best kept secrets: Sound Works had been doing forensic audio and expert witness services for many years.  We restore noisy recordings and can tell if recorded evidence has been tampered with. The same technology used in audio forensics to enhance intelligible conversation can reduce background noise audio on any recorded event from focus groups to film shoots.

Over the years, we have cleaned up audio from corporate video, film projects, small hand-held recorders as well as re-mastering music. The technology is amazing! We have successfully peeled away background noise, a chirping bird, crickets, tape hiss, vinyl or record surface noise, airplanes, motors and air conditioners to name a few.

One of my favorite success stories was the restoration of a music video. It was a large, multi-camera shoot of a live concert. The power supply in the sound truck audio console went bad and created loud pops across all channels of the recorded audio. When the media arrived at Sound Works, we identified the location of each pop and removed them. But it gets even better… Just editing the pops out of the music would have caused gaps and jumps in the songs. Our engineers were able to interpolate the missing sound and create a seamless removal of the pop. It’s like the problem never existed.

If you have a bad recording … think restoration. All may not be lost – it may save some costs and make you a hero.

If you liked this you may also want to read:

“But it’s a digital recording” – have you ever hear those words from one of your clients?

“It seemed impossible to pick out the voice buried amongst the restaurant bedlam on the recording”

By Dwight Cook

Entry Filed under: Forensic Audio, audio production, film production. Tags: film, noise, production, records, restoration, tape, video.