Improving audio made by a common camcorder

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petr
Posts: 17
Joined: Thu Jan 17, 2008 8:31 am

Improving audio made by a common camcorder

Post by petr »

Hello Earle, Hello Paavo!
I have a very "stupid" question. I recorded a heavy metal concert using a common video camcorder Panasonic. There is the RMS approx. -11, peaks 0 in the stereo audio track.

But as the recording was made automatically, the sound seems like a kind of "clipping" even if there is the peak 0. It seems sometime a kind like unnatural, like too loudly recorded, the voice like "essing", it just seems like the microphone could not make the loud sound properly.......but I do like the recording very much and want to do maximum of it.

The question is, can compressing help me to improve the described sound?
I put the recording into the har-bal and merged with a commercial sample of the band, and now I only want to use the compressor to finish it. I did a small sample and I think the compressor could help me.
What compression would you recommend me, I do not want to spend too much time trying. Can there be a general reccomendation of the for example threshold and ratio or so for the sound to sound more natural ?
HarBal
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Post by HarBal »

petr,

The problem you'll have with the sound from the camcorder is the sound will be hard limited in a drastic way by the microphone AGC. Typically, the AGC circuits in camcorders have slow reaction times so you'll have periods of clipping on transient material until the AGC cuts in at the right level.

Put simply, I'd say the problem you'll have with the camcorder soundtrack is too much compression and not a case of too little. There's really not much you can do about that. When you record the audio for the video you should do it via an external mic and preamp without the AGC (or at least with a limiter of better quality).

Cheers,


Paavo.
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