Rookie mistake - I recorded a video while my external hard drive was on and it added a lot of noise and vibration into my recording.

But… it can be fixed.

My mic is pretty good. An iRig HD (The v2 is out now and looks even better.) But I made a rookie mistake in a recording:

I left my external hard drive on, which added a lot of noise and vibration into the recording. And then I compounded my mistake by trying to fix the audio in the wrong order.

First I’ll explain what I did wrong, and then I’ll explain the proper steps to fix it.

What I did Wrong

Here’s what I did wrong:

• partially edited the video, prior to realising the audio was wrong
• exported the audio from the partially edited video to a .wav file to process in Audacity
• used noise reduction in Audacity
• exported to .mp3 to reimport back into the video
• edit the video

What was wrong about that?

Why was this wrong?

• by working with a partially edited video, I have no opportunity to go back to the start and try a new set of audio filters later
• by importing the .mp3 editing was a mess because the compression in the file made it hard for the video editor to works with sequential edits

I exported and edited three times before I realised it wasn’t going to work.

I threw my editing away and started again.

What I should have done

What I should have done was:

• Edit the full video, to remove all Ums, Ahs, errors etc. So that you have a ‘finished’ video, and the only thing wrong is the audio.
  • This allows you to re-process the audio and reimport it if you have better tools, or better ideas on how to filter it.
• Always have a two second block of ‘silence’ at the start of the video to help you with noise reduction efforts. It is easy to remove prior to mastering to .mp4
• Export the audio to a .wav file to process in Audacity
  • Use Noise Reduction in Audacity
  • I tend to then apply: Compression, Normalisation, Amplification (I usually use all Audacity defaults)
  • Sometimes I use noise levelling, but rarely
  • Because you edited it in the video editor, you just use Audacity for its filtering and noise processing. Which also allows you to use other applications and compare the results.
• Export the audio to a .wav file to re-import into the video editor

Summary

Edit it. Export it lossless. Fix it. Export it lossless. Reimport it.

Video production can take a long time if you do it wrong. Sometimes the faster thing to do is throw it away and re-record.

Audacity is a great tool. Try it out. Its free.