Tackling noisy foley

[pethenis]

How did that happen? You recorded the whole lot next to your computer and didn't listen to it? Use your ears man!

I just payed someone to do foley on a reel because I couldn't make the deadline and what I got back was not only noisy, but dubiously synced, bad edits, very obvious repetitions of the same sounds. And he still expected to be payed! Hey man, if something is worth doing, it's worth doing it right.

Nothing personal, but there's too many people claiming to be able to do post, doing it for next to nothing. Rant over.

Look into Izotope RX, the offline version does batch processing and it can do miracles sometimes. Provided you know how to use it...

[xecutionist007]

Originally Posted by pethenis

How did that happen? You recorded the whole lot next to your computer and didn't listen to it? Use your ears man!

I just payed someone to do foley on a reel because I couldn't make the deadline and what I got back was not only noisy, but dubiously synced, bad edits, very obvious repetitions of the same sounds. And he still expected to be payed! Hey man, if something is worth doing, it's worth doing it right.

Nothing personal, but there's too many people claiming to be able to do post, doing it for next to nothing. Rant over.

Look into Izotope RX, the offline version does batch processing and it can do miracles sometimes. Provided you know how to use it...

Not all of it is noisy, only some.
By then there i think i was using a cheap condensor mic that picked up a lot of that noise. I started using a shotgun later on. It worked alot better.

[Andrew Mottl]

might also be a "good" mic if it pics up the room and details well (albeit not for the situation of course...)
Shotgun plus a screen/blankets/? work when you have to do quick and dirty foley. You might get happy with notch +expander (C4?) to reduce the noise down to where it is masked by the rest of the soundtrack.
Still, usually it should be a good sounding quiet foley stage of course. :D

@pethenis - sorry to hear :( I hate it when these things happen (saw that happen to foley of episodes we couldn't do due to time constraints and the client studio booked 2 for the series' season. Quite a shock what was delivered, poor to no perspective (i.e. full close-up steps with squeaky sounds not audible at proper perspective, 50hz hum and hissy.)
:D Let me know if you're in need of (in my eyes/ears pretty good!) foley recordings or sync-tight editing again :D (((self-promotion off)))

[BIGBANGBUZZ]

Originally Posted by xecutionist007

Hey guys,

I am mixing a feature film. I did the entire foley work etc just to know at the final mix stage that alot of it is noisy, mainly because of the CPU fan noise and a hard disk noise.
What techniques do you guys use if such a problem occurs? e.g i tackled this with a gate and low pass filter. I was a bit skeptical about using noise reduction plugins like the waves Hum removal and x noise, it made the sound a lot digitized not something that my director would appreciate.
The results were pretty decent, and with the ambiance etc on top the scene sounded alright. What techniques do you guys use if such a problem occurs and your on an intense deadline?

- Ahmed

W43 and low pass filters high pass, izotope de hum, seriously though record away From the computer....
When I'm recording sfx at home, I set up in the bedroom.. I turn off clocks and even my fridge. It's all good till a plane flies over or a dog starts barking.

[xecutionist007]

Originally Posted by BIGBANGBUZZ

W43 and low pass filters high pass, izotope de hum, seriously though record away From the computer....
When I'm recording sfx at home, I set up in the bedroom.. I turn off clocks and even my fridge. It's all good till a plane flies over or a dog starts barking.

I was away, but i think during that time of the night my hard disk starting giving this rising hum sounds. I had to Redo it so many times to get it right that i got sick of it. i might have ignored some because i got so dead tired.

[Steven1145]

A proper foley room should be built to NC15. Anyone asking to be paid for foley recorded next to a running pc has to be joking.

Sent from my XT910 using Tapatalk

[danijel]

Originally Posted by Steven1145

A proper foley room should be built to NC15. Anyone asking to be paid for foley recorded next to a running pc has to be joking.

Hey Steven, he is doing his first gig all by himself. Low-budget and no-budget projects get noisy foley, and they should be happy that they have foley at all

BTW Ahmed, even when you record foley in a great room, with low self-noise equipment, still sometimes you'll have to do some NR on recordings with quiet sources, like some gentle touches, hair foley etc, so, doing NR on foley is not unheard of. iZotope RX Denoiser is currently better for that than the Waves NR stuff.

[xecutionist007]

Thanks Danijel. Didnt get time to talk to you again about my continuing woes :D but the movie is sounding great so far. I will try and play around with Izotope RX Denoiser. Your template has helped me a great deal. Made a lot of stuff easier to handle.

[Steven1145]

Sorry if my post came across as mean, I was reacting to Pethenis' message more than the OP. We all have projects which require us to be creative and to be able to invent workflows and methods.

And there are some foley studios ("proper" ones) that have quite high noise floors (residual AC, but more often noisy signal chains). The resulting foley can require a C4 set to expander mode, lest quiet scenes be crowded by the BG noise of the foley (and that is not the purpose of foley, obviously).

If you have a DNS-One license, it can be worth putting it across the foley stem/bus to get rid of some noise.

[celticrogues]

Blankets or comforters (or whatever you have on your bed) go a long way when recording down and dirty apartment foley.

It's also important to use a good quality low noise microphone so you can get a good signal to noise ratio. Foleys are usually played down in the mix quite a bit, so if you record them loud enough any noise problems will be minimized and covered up when you play it down in the mix.
Cheers,
-Mike

[danijel]

Originally Posted by Steven1145

Sorry if my post came across as mean, I was reacting to Pethenis' message more than the OP. We all have projects which require us to be creative and to be able to invent workflows and methods.

No Steven, I'M sorry if MY post came across as your post came across as mean

[Uncle Bob]

Originally Posted by Andrew Mottl

no perspective (i.e. full close-up steps...)

Those of us at the bottom of the food chain very often have no choice. At least my "Foley" room is separate from the control room, but much too small (140 square feet with seven [7] foot ceilings) to give accurate perspectives, so I close mic, record the Foley fairly "hot" and recreate the perspective with volume and AltiVerb.

Far from a perfect solution, but at least there is very minimal noise and it sounds okay once it's in the mix.

[xecutionist007]

Originally Posted by Uncle Bob

Those of us at the bottom of the food chain very often have no choice. At least my "Foley" room is separate from the control room, but much too small (140 square feet with seven [7] foot ceilings) to give accurate perspectives, so I close mic, record the Foley fairly "hot" and recreate the perspective with volume and AltiVerb.

Far from a perfect solution, but at least there is very minimal noise and it sounds okay once it's in the mix.

Yes, i am in the process of creating a separate studio for the post work with a foley room. Right now though i am on a budget and its a full length feature.

I used the Senheisser M35 shotgun. It had really good results atleast comparing to the condenser mic that i was using.
So my idea is to complete the feature with easy to do solutions at the moment. For the next film we already do have a budget and resources.