Jay, nice to meet you. I am one of the contributing writers here at Student Filmmakers, and a specialist in audio. I would be happy to try to help you out. Are you currently using any audio editing programs? If you need something for free, there is Audacity. There is also full video and audio editing from Blackmagic DaVinci Resolve which is extremely professional, yet it is made available for free. If your saved audio on the camera is a stereo track (with regular audio and the right channel as a lower level safety copy of the left track), you will first need to convert that track to two individual MONO tracks. This is easily done in either software. Then, just delete the bad track. You can convert the remaining (good) audio track back to a stereo track if you want to, at that point. DaVinci Resolve is FREE and extremely powerful video & audio editing suite --- worth downloading. It will compete against AVID and ProTools in terms of versatility and professional features. Not sure why it is free; probably a marketing thing to get it entrenched amongst filmmakers, but who's complaining! If you have more questions, or would like to discuss your situation with me in greater detail, feel free to email me directly at:
Fred @ FilmTVsound.com
A common problem in recording audio for video is that most beginners tend to record at too high a level. A lot of that is due to the manufacturers trying to "idiot proof" their metering, so no one really can tell what the recording levels actually are. On professional rigs, our levels are accurately labeled in dB, with zero being the point of distortion and negative 20 dB being just about right for normal dialogue. But a lot of semi-professional camcorders use a hybrid (my first word of choice would be obscene to print) metering system that is more akin to the old fashioned zero VU averaging meters than the current digital absolute metering of today. I always recommend that before any production shoot, that you run some tests to see just how your in-camera meters react. Record the same test audio (such as dialogue that includes a whisper and a shout) at various camcorder meter levels, and then see how they sound back in editing. Most of the time, I have discovered that recording a little bit on the low side yields better results; but it all depends on how the manufacturer defines "zero". They are afraid that if their meters read negative 20, most amateurs would record too close to absolute zero and distort. Pro's know that negative 20dB is the equivalent of what used to be known as zero VU. dB and VU are totally different ways of measuring audio levels! But too many camcorders try to split the difference; so that a professional end user really does not know what actual audio level is being recorded. So do some tests to try and determine what the numbers in your viewfinder really mean!
