Fixing audio distortion from recording at a concert?

Question

Hi there,

Just before I go on. I know that profiting from recording artists live is illegal and I will not be doing that. Also the venue allowed cameras to be used at the show.

I just want to fix the video recordings so I can atleast appreciate them, and perhaps show my future children them.

Was at the Nightwish concert at Glasgow yesterday night.

Twas a magnificent show and experience. Was using a Samsung NV3 camera to take pictures and video.

The video quality is great. Sadly though the audio is just a bunch of fuzz but is fine when the guitar or drums stops playing.

Is there anyway to try and get rid of this overpowering noise and being able to hear what is actually being played?

Thanks

Answer 1

If you're really lucky, one channel was recorded at a lower level than the other, and you can remove the worse channel and split the lower-level channel as mono.

There isn't much available to fix distorted audio.  It is almost as hard as trying to de-echo audio (which is virtually impossible).  In the case of echo, it is something permanently infused into the waveform, and in the case of distortion, it is the top shapes permanently chopped off of the waves.  An audio engineer I read somewhere said that  trying to remove echo is as hard as trying to un-fry an egg or un-bake a cake.

Since it is so difficult to do, tools to remove distortion are expensive.   I found the following advice in the blog referenced in the source below:

"if the distortion is severe or prolonged and there's no chance of re-recording the sound, you may be best served by taking your distorted audio files to a facility that has Sonic Solutions' NoNoise, which is part of their Sonic Studio HD product http://www.sonic.com/sshd_home.html.

...It can even generate resynthesized audio to replace damaged sound ...but a NoNoise system comes with a hefty price tag, so it's best to farm this work out. Depending on where you live, expect to pay anywhere from $60/hour to $150/hr for NoNoise work. Your budget may not like it but sometimes there is no other option."