ADR Telephone Scene

T

tomflint

Member
Hi all,

I'm going into an ADR session and need the actor to record his voice for an off-screen telephone scene. Does anyone know the trick for how to make it seem as though his voice is coming through the telephone? Is this effect achieved during the ADR recording itself (by using some special tool), or is it done after the recording (by use of audio filters and so on)? There's something about the way voices sound over the phone in films that can be really suspenseful - that's what I'm going for!
 
I'm a noob at this but I'm pretty sure you would just record the cleanest dialogue you can get and add the effect in post.
 
Record clean, not with effects. The "phone" effect is achieved during audio post. If you have an experienced someone handling your sound mixing/editing he or she will know how to do this. If you're doing it yourself, it's a combination of plug-ins... mostly EQ and distortion. Use a hi-pass and lo-pass on the EQ and pull them in to take out everything but the midrange, essentially leaving only 500Hz - 5kHz. Play with it from there to get the frequency response that you like. Add a little distortion (if you have a plug-in that can do that) for added realism. It doesn't take much.
 
Agree with above. On Kohlman Files we tried doing it various "practical" ways just to see how it worked. It worked terrible. Record clean and use a combo of EQ and filters as noted.
 
I always record clean and then use one of my favorite Pro Tools plug-ins called "Speakerphone". It emulates just about anything audio passed through. Telephones, radios, toys, guitar cabs...just about anything, and you can tweak tons of the settings in the pre-sets. It's totally worth it to own.
 
To be possible picky it's not really ADR if your not redoing lines that are said on camera. Could be though so...

As a rule you would always record clean and manipulate the recording.

The main reason is that what sounds good on it's own may not sound right once you have all the rest of the sound in place and you can't undo the recording.

There are really two ways to manipulate it. The old school one is to run you recording through a phone or similar device and record the other end. This is refereed to as "Futzing" or if your doing it out in the "real world", as opposed to a futz room, "worldizing". Mix stages used to have a sound proof room someplace with a bunch of small and wanky speakers in them from old telephones and small radios etc. And you could send a signal from the console to the "futz room" and then a mic in the room returned your "futzed" sound. It works well but you need the space and the room.

The second way is to use a bunch of plugins (or hardware boxes) to do it. That can work well also and you have more flexibility.

The new and probably best option is the above mentioned SPEAKERPHONE. It uses convolution processing and samples from tons of real speakers to give you essentially you own software futz room with a huge amount of flexibility. The down side is it isn't cheap.

You can also get VYNIL from iZotope (it's free) and it will get you pretty close.
 
Following up on the topic of ADR...

Are there any situations where a voice shouldn't be recorded in the clearest possible way with the actor's mouth close to the mic? i.e. if the recorded ADR voice is going to be synced to someone in a tunnel, at the other end of an auditorium, or on the other side of a door and so on, should the voiceover ALWAYS be recorded as clearly into the mic as possible and be manipulated afterwards with filters? Or is it sometimes advantageous to record the voiceover with the actor standing farther away from the mic, or using some kind of a special tool during the ADR? If so, in what cases?
 
Caveat: This COULD be the limitations of my audio guy who may not have really figured this out yet.

In a wide shot, you need some room in the ADR track. It's almost impossible to make close mic track really sound "right" without a bit of room built in.
 
A convolution reverb applied during post can help take an ADR track recorded clean in studio and 'place' it in the environment of the scene.
 
Again, only speaking from our own experience. Certainly don't mean he really has to be across the room, but we put a few feet between him and the mic rather than right on it with a pop screen. Seems to make the track easier to fit.
 
davefisk said:
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gonzo_entertainment said:
Again, only speaking from our own experience. Certainly don't mean he really has to be across the room, but we put a few feet between him and the mic rather than right on it with a pop screen. Seems to make the track easier to fit.
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It is REALLY difficult to fake distance with plugins. What is usually done is you record the ADR clean and then "worldize" it. That way you still have the option to change the space and you don't have an actor standing around waiting for the world to shut up long enough to get the take.

OP you used ADR and VO to refer to the same thing in on sentence.

Or is it sometimes advantageous to record the voiceover with the actor standing farther away from the mic, or using some kind of a special tool during the ADR?
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They are not the same thing. It's really hard to do lip sync at a distance so you don't find dubbing booths that are large. But you also don't want you actor to eat the mic. Ideally you are in the same ballpark as the boom mic was, so a foot to 18 inches. If you need it to be outside then you worldize it as above.

On the flip side I was getting really good results from going more "european". I don't give the actors picture anymore for ADR. With inexperienced actors they get all wrapped up in looking at themselves and the sync gets way off. I give them the line (from production) so they feel the pace and then have them repeat it. 90% of the time they get it better and faster. Some folks have no sense of rhythm so... But they generally also don't do well with picture either.

AND I would run a bunch of cable and shoot the ADR in a room that sounded like the one in the film. My studio was in the house so it was easy. And I would also run it outside and do external ADR. With a lap top you can even go "on location", which I did for one show.

This is NOT how the big boys do it. When everyone is making more than the post folks it's not cost effective. On a low budget film that is not a factor and you can save a lot of time.

The catch is that you really need the post person who KNOWS what the scene is going to sound like to be doing this, or at least in charge of it. It doesn't work if where you record doesn't sound like the scene. As a rule everybody but the poor post guy/gal hear what they want to hear so they will pick places that match... the script, what they think it should have sounded like, etc. You need the person who will get it to sound like it actually does.

The other catch with all ADR is you need to do a full sound post where ever you do ADR. That can be a problem for shows that didn't plan on doing a full audio post for any of the show. If you don't cover the ADR will sound naked and stick out. If the ADR is the only place you do full coverage then everything else will sound not quite finished and the ADR will stick out.

You might be able to dirty up the ADR enough to make it fit, to some extent you will always need to do some of that, but it's better if you are doing a full sound post on the whole film.
 
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