Basic Levels for Music & Dialogue

R

RadioRocket

Member
Hey everyone,

I'm fairly new to audio post-production. I always incorporate music in dialogue scenes however, I find that my music always battles with my dialogue. I can tweak it but what is the rule of thumb with these things? Can anyone provide more insight on the matter? and levels in general?

Thanks!
 
Two basic things help a lot; a score that has a good stereo spread (and is written to accommodate the dialog) , and using EQ to lower the frequencies in the music that occupy the same frequencies as the dialog. Sometimes adding a little reverb will push the music back into the mix a little more.
 
For me, dialog is set to peak between -12 and -6 (compressing just slightly for a stronger punch). Background Music is set to peak around -20. As Unclebob said, I will often use a parametric eq to remove about 6db at 2500hz. I will sometimes manually duck the music track during important speech parts or if the track climaxes inappropriately.

Most importantly, listen to the mix on good speakers (and bad speakers as well). If it translates on nearfields, headphones and poor laptop/TV speakers, it will probably translate well in general.


Jason
 
The first rule of thumb is get the dialogue working at your desired level range. As Jason wrote, somewhere between -12 and -6 (or better yet, a Dial Norm average of say -24 or whatever is required for your delivery).

Of course before you worry about the dialogue level you have to get the dialog edited and cleaned up so it's ready to be the focal point of your mix. Any fixes or crossfades, room tone (really concentrate on the room tone) all need to be completed before you start doing any mixing effects like Eq.

Then you can start adding your MX and any FX, backgrounds, foley, etc; Everything is based on the dialogue level.
 
Everybody's feedback has been great here, but of course I've got to echo Bob's point about music written for the dialogue. The ideal would be to have a skilled composer who knows the job. Music should be written to not interfere rhythmically with dialogue and orchestrated and mixed to not interfere on the frequency spectrum. If you're just grabbing something royalty free, unless it's a really simple bed, you'd be pretty lucky to get away without a lot of eqing, playing with levels, etc.
 
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