How do you match audio volume in a video?

Cineaste

Cineaste

Cineaste
I am helping a friend edit his first video ( I am learning as I go along) and we got a rough cut of the film, however some scenes have a louder audio then others.

How would you match the volume in every scene so it's all the same level? Besides playing it by ear.

what kind of software do you guys use?

Thanks,

Edwin
 
Every sound editing program I've seen has a "Normalize" function in there somewhere. That will bring all the levels up (or down) to whatever you set it at. (Do each clip separately...not the audio on the finished edit)

It may give you an option to set the Peak value or the RMS value. I usually go with Peak.

Peaking at -3db seems to be pretty standard, but I'm new at this, too. :)
 
With all due respect that is not a good way to go. There are a couple of reasons one is that a lot of "normalize" functions bring the peak up to 0dBFS and you don't want your sound that hot. Also there are normal fluctuations that need to stay or it will sound wrong and lastly mixing the level higher usually sounds better (this may not be the case so much now with better computers), normalizing tended to sound "digital". Oh and the last one is that your boosting the noise as well, much better to boost around dialog.

I would recommend using volume automation to fix the levels. I'm assuming your in FCP or Avid, and want to stay there. Post sound is usually done in a DAW. ProTools is probably the most common, at least in the US, but Nuendo, SAW are all used (and some I didn't think of).
SK






GenJerDan said:
Every sound editing program I've seen has a "Normalize" function in there somewhere. That will bring all the levels up (or down) to whatever you set it at. (Do each clip separately...not the audio on the finished edit)

It may give you an option to set the Peak value or the RMS value. I usually go with Peak.

Peaking at -3db seems to be pretty standard, but I'm new at this, too. :)
Click to expand...
 
See Sound Forge Effects/Dynamics/Graphic for some starting point mastering curves. Keep in mind that VOLUME is a measure of power not amplitude. POWER is the AREA UNDER the waveform curve NOT the amplitude of the wave. This is the reason that commercials often SOUND LOUDER than the programming - because of the compression curve that was used to change the POWER of the sound - remember they must keep the amplitude within certain limits so they DON'T overmodulate the transmitters. So when you are balancing sound from scene to scene be sure to balance dialog first before adding SFX and music. Then be sure to place the SFX and music with respect to the dialog.
 
Noiz2 said:
Also there are normal fluctuations that need to stay or it will sound wrong
Click to expand...

Huh?

I've never seen a normalize that brought everything up to the same level. All they ever did was raise (or lower) everything proportionally.
 
yeah, normalize just brings your highest peak to whatever you set it, 100% is 0db, it will not alter the waveform itself. I use this a lot when recording music.
 
Normalize should not alter your audio in a bad way, but it is useless for this scenario as previously mentioned. You need to alter the relative volume of the tracks. If you don't have access to a DAW (which would be the easiest way) you could go into something like soundforge and add or remove gain to the individual clips. It would be much more difficult that way.

re: Normalize. Pretty useless. The only way to increase the average volume of material is to use compression.
 
I haven't either. That's not what I was saying. I was talking about two diferent reasons why Normalizing is not usually the right way to go. The first is that unless you can set a normalize level (they don't all have that ability) you will be way too hot. And that you don't want all the dialog in the film to have the same (peak) level. Quiet scenes in quiet places want to be quieter. Not a huge amount quieter but a bit. If you bedroom dialog is as loud as the battlefield it wont sound right.
And a last point is if you care about your sound you need to actually mix it.

In theory normalizing should sound just the same as raising the over all level but in my experience it hasn't, and I don't know why.
SK



GenJerDan said:
Huh?

I've never seen a normalize that brought everything up to the same level. All they ever did was raise (or lower) everything proportionally.
Click to expand...
 
Johnmilton said:
I am using vegas 5 + sound forge 7.0, i'll check sound forge to see if have any volume automation.
Click to expand...

Vegas is probably the place you would want to do your level adjusting in. There must be some clip or "rubber band" automation. Sorry it's not an app I'm familiar with. Sound Forge is great but it's a two track editor and you would have to make destructive changes to the sound files. And I guess I should point out that the term "destructive" doesn't mean bad, it's just what it's called when you permanently change the file. Volume automation is non-destructive.
SK
 
SoundForge from within Vegas is (or can be) non-destructive. If you "Open a Copy In Sound Forge" on a right-click, you'll end up with take 2, take 3, take 4, etc versions of the original.

I hate the naming process, though. If you just let it default, you'll wind up with BlahBlah Take 2.wav, BlahBlah Take 2 Take 2.wav, BlahBlah Take 2 Take 2 Take 2.wav :)
 
Sorry about the misinfo. It's been a few years since I used Sound Forge. One of the few apps that I really missed moving to the Mac.
SK
 
I watch the audio meter.

the biggest explosion in the movie = just under zero (no red)
all other loud noises, gun shots etc, and the loudest scoring without dialogue = -3
dialogue varies from -12 to -6 within each scene
scoring and other sound inlcuding ambient sound is set iso that the dialogue in the -12 to -6 range is clear within the context of the scene.

Next try EQuing wild track, location dialgue, and ADR so the all sound the same but different from your Voice Over --- oy vey!
 
Thanks for those tips Jack. (and everyone else here) I've been trying t soak up this audio world for a while.
 
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