CLASSROOM: Fixing Audio Hum or Buzz with DaVinci Resolve’s DAW Fairlight1 min read
Reading Time: 2 minutes
We’ve all been there. You’ve spent days getting your lights and camera package ready for the big shoot. You got there early, set up your lights and camera and even splurged on that boom pole holder to save money on a boom-op. Before you know it “That’s a wrap!” and you hurry home to your editing bay in the corner of your bedroom. You spend a few hours colour grading finding the LUT that conveys just enough of the story’s angst without calling attention to itself, when suddenly, you notice something else calling attention to itself. You take off your Sony 7506 headphones thinking maybe it’s coming from the kitchen… The noise disappears however when the cans come off, leading you to question the nature of your reality. Turns out you spent so much time getting that Kino 4-bank in the perfect fill-spot that you forgot to kill the air conditioner in the room, leaving a low but irritating hum in your mic tracks; lav and boom.
Thankfully DaVinci Resolve’s DAW Fairlight has a quick and easy fix so simple a grip can do it. It’s called De-Hummer. That’s right. You wanna de-hum your audio? Drag their De-Hummer plugin over to your audio channel. The plugin has two default settings at 50hz and 60hz, because these are the fundamental frequencies of most alternating current of power mains. There’s also a “Variable” knob that lets you scan from 50hz all the way up to 400hz so you can really find where the hum is.
Image credit: Hurlbut
