what are top 5 tips to optimize audio in post?

markcheng

markcheng

Well-known member
I'm new to audio and was wondering if one of the audio pros here could kinda summarize the most common tweaks one can do in post (after audio is already recorded!) to make it sound "better". that's broad i know, but i thot there might be a couple of very common things or audio concepts to help improve quality of dialogue for films. like how do you reduce the amount of his while increasing the volume of speech? thanks in advance. if there's already a thread, please post!:) THe sticky on this forum seems to address hardware and production more than post...
 
Play with equalization to see if you can eq out hums, buzzes, etc (constant or cyclic background noise).

Odds are, you'll take out some portion of your dialog, in the process, too.
 
If your using FCP or Adobe you have excess to the built in audio processing tools and filters that can be applied. Apply a compressor to the audio files if your audio has quick spikes of loudness or you want to even out the levels of the file. For hiss apply the largest eq fiter with the most bands ( au graphic equilizer ) and adjust the the highs down starting with the hights 20000hz and leave it down and set each decending one down until you find the right area that the noise resides in and cut out what is making the noise or hiss. After you find the area start at the top and bring the top hz back up until they add noise into the file. You want the clean highs in the file. You can do the same with lowend hum to isolate the right hz to remove just the bad ones. This process can be quick to acopplish once you have done it a couple of times. I find that I export to sound track pro alot and sample the noise and remove it a little at a time, too much removal at one time can introduce electronic noise so be careful, I love this program and its filters. I am a protools guy and love protools but find STP a great program. Take time to learn what it can do using the filters and your audio will be greatly inhanced. Sometimes you want a dry sound or sometimes adding a 2percent reverb and make your vocals much richer without being noticed. Hope this helps.
:)
 
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pixelated said:
Good question, well stated. - Always know you've won eliciting more gold from Wabbit . . .
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Not sure if you tongue was in your cheek when you wrote this :) but considering ALL the different tasks involved in audio post production, why re-invent the wheel? Many books have been written and websites with good tutorials on the subject (Jay's site is also littered with audio articles and links). Jay Rose's book is particularly accessible to novices. He has a very laymen's approach to his writing.

Cheers
 
Sorry if this sounds flippant, but...

The top five things you can do to make your audio better in post are

1. Record it right during production
2. Record it right during production
3. Record it right during production
4. Record it right during production
5. Record it right during production

People far too often sacrifice audio during a shoot for almost anything else (time, budget, etc.) with the belief that it can be fixed in post. There are indeed lots of things that can be done in post to fix audio problems... but they'll take more effort, and provide a worse result, than doing it right in the first place.

Now, once audio is recorded "right", there are still lots of types of manipulation you may want to use for artistic (rather than resorative) purposes. Some of the most generally useful are:

1. EQ, to sweeten sound and make voices more intelligible
2. Reverb, to match sounds to each other in the soundscape
3. Compression, to provide a comfortable dynamic range and prevent ear fatigue
4. Panning and spatialization to create a sound field

... and a plethora of techniques for specific situations, such as speeding or slowing audio, EQing to sound like, say, a telephone or sound heard through a wall, etc.

But the effectiveness of these techniques again depends on capturing clean sound in the first place. It's easy to play around with clean sounds and get the sound you want. It's HARD or impossible to clean up bad sound.
 
Just received Jay Rose's book that Wabbit recommended - his description

Jay Rose's book is particularly accessible to novices. He has a very laymen's approach to his writing.
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is correct in that it's written so that a novice like myself can actually understand it, but the content is first rate and worth every cent. - I LOVE it !!!!

Thank you Wabbit - again.

For any who plan to order - go to the link Wabbit provided FIRST -

http://www.dplay.com/book/app/index.html
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you get it for less and Jay makes more money - a win-win.

Best to all :beer:
 
While I definitely agree with Ullanta on the number one technique being record it right in production, one thing I would add to achieve the best results in post would be sound EDITORIAL.
Too many indie film makers seem to skip this process. i.e. they have their project in FCP, AVID, Vegas, Premiere etc etc. and they assume it is ready to mix, add some eq, compression, verb and it's good to go. Biggest mistake when trying to achieve that Hollywood sound.
Once picture is locked, time needs to be spent on sound editing prior to the movie being mixed. This could be several weeks to months depending on how many editors involved.
1) Dialogue editing. Rule of thumb is about 10 minutes a day, so most movies would be about 2 weeks worth of dialogue edting, which consists of cleaning up the production tracks, smoothing out cuts within a scene to make sure it sounds like it all took place within that time period. Adding ambient fill where needed, getting rid of unwanted set noise, splitting out tracks (checkerboarding) so as to make it easier to mix, seperating PFX and dialogue for ADR, removing clicks and pops, etc. etc.
2) Determining how much ADR needs to be done, then cueing, recording and editing that.
3) Recording and editing foley. (footsteps, cloth movement etc etc.)
4) Building the sound FX and background tracks. This could take weeks to months depending on the scope of the movie. For instance a 3 minute car chase/shoot 'em up scene could take a few days to build.
5) Music editing. A composer will give you the tracks hopefully recorded with a timecode sync but you also have to lay them in and do any required editing. For instance you have a party scene where there is source music being played on a stereo or a DJ at the party in the living room. We follow the Lead character from the living room to the back yard. As you cut to the exterior it will sound totally different to the interior so the music needs to be split to a different set of tracks at that point so it can be "treated" differently. Different EQ, reverb etc. to give it a "realistic" sound so the audience believes it is coming from inside the house.

It is not unusual to be 80 tracks or more wide once all this has been done. There will not be 80 tracks at once in a scene but by checker boarding between scenes it gives the mixer a greater level of control over creating different sounding "spaces". i.e. if you are going from a scene in a warehouse to a scene in a hospital room, you wouldn't want the dialogue, FX, foley tracks to be on the same tracks across the cut as that would make it very difficult for the mixer to change the sound of the "space" at the cut.
Dont be afraid to spread things out.
 
Glad you are happy pixelated. Even more happy to see you paying it forward. :)

Jay is a really great resource. When I need a specific question answered Jay always has insightful feedback. He has a regular column over at DV.com as well as being a moderator in their audio forum. You can drop him a PM over there letting him know how much you like his book(s). I am sure hearing positive feedback from readers never gets tiring.

Cheers
 
ozduc said:
While I definitely agree with Ullanta on the number one technique being record it right in production, one thing I would add to achieve the best results in post would be sound EDITORIAL.

...

Dont be afraid to spread things out.
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Only things I would change/ add are I would swap 3 & 4. You should as a rule do the FX cutting first so you know what you need to cover.

And even though he only asked for 5 there should be a 6 for the mix.
 
Noiz2 said:
Only things I would change/ add are I would swap 3 & 4. You should as a rule do the FX cutting first so you know what you need to cover.

And even though he only asked for 5 there should be a 6 for the mix.
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Unfortunately in the world of post production sound you don't often get that luxury.
All the editorial I mentioned is usually happenning simultaniously. Foley is normally considered to be anything actors do or touch. i.e. footsteps, cloth movement, picking up a set of keys, patting someone on the back, putting down a glass, etc. etc. A good foley artist knows what to cover and a good FX editor also knows what to cover and the 2 would usually communicate on any given project so as to be on the same page.

Another thing to consider when doing foley and FX is to build them as if there was a blank canvas. In other words turn off the production sound and build everything. The reason being, if you get distribution for your movie chances are the distributors will require a fully filled M & E for foreign.
 
I don't know if I can name 5, but you can cut or reduce the levels below 80hz or 160hz, if the ambient noise is a little distracting(this works like a low cut filter if your mic or mixer doesn't have one), so if you have bad mic placement, this won't help you too much. Also, dialogue sounds a little bit more intelligible if you bump the level at 2.5khz and boost it at 6khz. That's about the extent of my post production audio knowledge. I started getting into post production sound recently too.
 
Depends I guess where you work. We are usually on weeks before the Foley gets recorded. Foley can be just about anything, but yes it usually is mostly FS and movements and cloth. However there are a lot of crossover points. Doors for instance are almost always done in FX but not always. Also with the work flow of most DV projects you can actually have your FX almost completely cut before you do Foley. And then there is WIFO. We are doing that almost always before Foley gets walked.

But truthfully I think we both just went way past the scale of sound post the poster was probably talking about. I think he was probably wanting five tips for doing post in FCP.

THe kind of post ozduc and I are talking about takes roughly 15 manhours per screen minute to do, not counting the final mix. So thats 1,400 hours of work for a 90 min feature. It will make a huge difference in how "professional" your film feels but it takes a lot of work to get there. Med budget films and up (50 mil+) generally have 5% or so of the budget for sound post. Under that you should figure closer to 10%. Somewhere toward micro budget your working on a lot of favors. But whether your spending the cash or getting favors it's going to take about the same # of hours to get a quality track.
And you pretty much can't do it in a picture editing application like FCP or Avid. I mean ANYTHING is possible but realistically they are the wrong tools for the job.



ozduc said:
Unfortunately in the world of post production sound you don't often get that luxury.
All the editorial I mentioned is usually happenning simultaniously. Foley is normally considered to be anything actors do or touch. i.e. footsteps, cloth movement, picking up a set of keys, patting someone on the back, putting down a glass, etc. etc. A good foley artist knows what to cover and a good FX editor also knows what to cover and the 2 would usually communicate on any given project so as to be on the same page.

Another thing to consider when doing foley and FX is to build them as if there was a blank canvas. In other words turn off the production sound and build everything. The reason being, if you get distribution for your movie chances are the distributors will require a fully filled M & E for foreign.
Click to expand...
 
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