Working with Production Sound

Earlier in the lesson you worked with voiceover that was recorded in a controlled environment. A movie set is the next best thing to a sound booth, giving you a lot of control over things that could possibly contaminate sound recordings. But production sound recorded on location is at the mercy of everything from buzzing flies to airplanes passing overhead, car horns to people in the distance—even a good breeze can wreak audio havoc.

Nature happens on location, but luckily it’s no match for the power of the Waveform Editor. Not only can you isolate and silence unwanted sounds, but you can also reduce the overall noise level. For the remainder of the lesson you’ll work with production sound recorded on a set or on location. First you’ll open an audio file project containing a production sound recording on location. You’ll raise the overall level of the audio and use the Reduce Noise process to eliminate most of the background noise. Along the way you’ll also use the frequency spectrum view for a better look at the noise.