Achieving "Poor-Quality" Voice Over

A

ArtsnFartsNCrafts

Active member
I know it's an odd subject title, but hear me out, please. I'm currently working on shooting a visual reproduction of 70's classic kung fu cinema. It's not a convincing reproduction, though, if the sound isn't as crappy as the quality of the footage!

Thought several tweaks in color correction, sharpness of the footage, etc, combined with the style in which most kung fu films were shot, I've managed to achieve a VERY convincing effect of the low-quality film look seen in most kung fu exploitation films (I was shooting in 24p).

However, none of that matters if I can't acheive the poor-quality of voice over audio for the characters dialogue. I'm stuck on how to do that! I know most people have seen old kung fu films and know how bad the quality of the audio is (and i'm not talking about how it's poorly sync'd up to the actual actors).

I've heard several suggestions from studio engineers regarding EQ, low pass and high pass filters, and even noise plug-ins.

Do you guys have any suggestions?

Thanks a bunch.
 
I'd try playing the voice recording through ordinary speakers, possibly somewhere where the acoustics aren't very good, and record it into a camcorder, minidisc or recording device of your choice.

I did something similar in a film scene which started off outside a party, and then moved into the building itself. To make the music sound like it does if you're actually outside a party, I played the music through large speakers, with the treble turned right down. I recorded this into the camera, then exported the audio and added a subtle amount of echo. It sounded more realistic than I think could have been achieved by just editing the sound normally. As the scene progressed and moved inside I crossfaded it to another version of the same music played more clearly.
 
the high pass/low pass stuff you could do.. its called a band pass, play around with the cutoff frequencies start around the 130 - 4500 Hz mark and see what happens.

yeah you could record it through some speakers but you'd still have to make sure you were in a quiet place to do that. ..If you listen to some old movies where everything was dome in a studio you very often hear when someone shouts loud on an Exterior scene you can hear the acoustics of the studio very clearly, so you will have that element coming in if you record it through a speaker indoors, may give it some 'oldness'

the dark art of compression will also be something to look into. too much to describe here, but simply put it makes the quiet bits loud and the loud bits quiet. all the bad comression was used on the older films so you could pretty much sit down with the record-level fader and react (turn down) to the loud bits and gradually fade up for the quiet bits and hey presto - bad compression! of course thats a silly way to do it but I was just saying that by way of explaination of what it sounds like.

how about putting a record player scratch track in for good measure.
 
Wow!

Wow!

Talk about destiny! I came onto these boards with literally the exact same question - what are the chances of that?

To elaborate, I'm looking for that nice soft, warm, almost fuzzy voice tone you get in 50's radio ads. The voice at the beginning of the trailer for Body Count (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1kYft_kcsZc) has exactly the right audio qualities I'm going for, if that helps anyone with their answers.
 
Actually I think it's two questions. But with some similarities. First both would have been on optical mono. That means academy curve and a bunch of compression. Also you will get a fair amount of optical noise as both would be pre Dolby SR. Possible Dolby A, but with the Kung Fu flicks maybe no NR at all. I don't have the exact specks at hand but the curve is something in the range of 3dB / octive roll off starting at ~~200 (this might be a bunch higher like 500Hz) and another 3 dB roll off starting at ~~8K So pretty much nothing below 100Hz or above 10kHz. I would start pretty heavy with the compression. You might look at a plugin (free) called Vinyl (Mac only I think but??) or the equivalent to get in the ball park.

For the Kung Fu flick. Dialog Quick and dirty, everything was/ is dubbed so it all sounds like it was done in a sound booth. Don't try to use production, you wont throw it off properly and the voices will match too closely. Also I wouldn't use the same actors that originally did the lines, you could use the same folks but have them dub parts they didn't do. It's OK to use the same actor to dub more than one character. For FX bee really cheap. If you have one decent hit use it for all the hits. Do likewise with everything else. These films were done with no time so don't finess too much, just go for it. On a second pass you can tweek things a bit if you were too good. And remember NO bottom, NO top, everything is in a narrow range.

For the VO, get a great mic and a really good voice, then run it all through the above. The original tracks you are talking about were probably recorded at a good recording studio with high end Large diaphragm mics on to tape then sent to the studio to go through optical hell. Optical tracks can not handle Low end. With a deep voice like the sample, the would have compressed the hett out of it to get it to fit on the track. So the voice probably would have sounded much lower, but they couldn't go there. So the rolled off the curve and compressed it to get as much low as poss from what the curve left.

Also both of you should look into some tube distortion kind of plugins. That will give some of the warm distortion you are looking for and is the kind of distortion you would be getting from an optical track.

Have fun
 
I like the re-recording through some cheap speakers idea. That would give it a real 'off' 'bad frequency response' sound, especially if you used a cheap mic. The more complex suggestion is also great if you have access to the equipment.

Good Luck
 
Rerecording works great for "worldizing" sounds. The problem with that in this case is that the small speaker will not mimic the chain that gets the sound these guys are looking for. It might kinda work for the kung for flick but it's not going to work well at all for the narrator - probably. You always have to add the probably because the right actor, the right little speaker, the right rerecording technique and who knows.
 
filmsparK said:
To elaborate, I'm looking for that nice soft, warm, almost fuzzy voice tone you get in 50's radio ads. The voice at the beginning of the trailer for Body Count (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1kYft_kcsZc) has exactly the right audio qualities I'm going for, if that helps anyone with their answers.
Click to expand...


It may be an oversimplification, but that just sounds like a sh!tty recording. Bad mics, bad equipment, kinda like my setup. :)

Actually, some of the dialogue sounded fuller than the VO. Meh, go figure.

I'de do what most have suggested, fiddle with your eq and rolloff the way Noiz2 said. Plus, before you start playing try normalizing instead of compression. Normalizing often keeps all the nasty noise that compression often gets rid of, while at the same time balancing volume.

Some nice tape hiss would add some life to it. Plus, random frame dropouts, volume spikes up and down may help.

I tell you what is a great reference: the original tracks from Kung Pow Enter the Fist. The original dialogue and music was at times unrecognizable underneath all the noise and audio degrading.
 
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