Critique or advice on my audio

L

L1N3ARX

Well-known member
To me, audio is almost annoyingly important. I say that because I'm not passionate about it at all... but I realize the extreme importance of good audio. I don't have the best ear or gear in terms of sound / audio-- I'm a "camera guy" first and foremost. But, I'm trying to get the best possible sounding dialog with the equipment I have. I've noticed that in film / TV, the dialogue sounds very unique. It has a "crispy" feel to it, without any extra base for the most part (that's just what I hear as a viewer). I tried to match that same sound here.

Can someone critique the way this sounds? Anything I should change? Did I perhaps drop the low end too much?

When using an NTG3 indoors / reflective areas, are there any simple filters or settings (in premiere would be nice) I should apply to my audio that can at least help remedy echo?

 
The dialog is pretty inconsistent. For example in the first shot, the first speaker sounded way off-mic, while the guy in the mask sounded like he had the mic.
Did you have someone dedicated to getting the microphone in the right spot? And LISTENING to what they were doing on good headphones?
The ambient noise is all over the map. Some shots are nice and quiet, others have lots of noise from nearby people, traffic, etc.
There was a lot of low-end noise that could be filtered out without affecting the voices at all.
Proper location selection is FAR EASIER than trying to filter out extraneous noise after the fact. It usually isn't even possible.
Using "shotgun" microphones indoors is very problematic because near reflections negate most of the directional properties of the mic.
We typically use hyper-cardioid microphones indoors or anywhere we encounter close reflections.
 
Thanks!
Yes, I should have clarified, at times you'll hear another person, but we captured that dialogue separately. I'm just concerned about the actors on screen and not behind the scenes / over-the-shoulder / line-reading etc.

Yes ambient sound is all kinds of crazy here ;). But this is something we had no control over, so I'm not gonna worry about it for now.

Right now my main concern is with just the actual sound of the dialogue / actor's voices. What should I be filtering out or changing?

Thanks for the response.
 
L1N3ARX said:
...Yes ambient sound is all kinds of crazy here ;). But this is something we had no control over, so I'm not gonna worry about it for now.
..
Click to expand...
You may not have much control over what sounds are in the environment but proper choice of mic, choice of mic location, and careful and continuous attention to mic aiming can go a long way in reducing the degree to which it interferes with the desired dialog. Remember the shotguns are NOT "telephotos for sound" and they do not magnify distant sounds. The key to good dialog recording is first and foremost location location location. Getting the mic within 20 inches or so of the speaker's mouth and keeping it aimed within a circle about 8 inches in diameter centered on his throat is crucial to good results.
 
Last edited:
Richard asked a question, and you side-stepped it. It's the most critical element of recording audio. If you want the best audio quality, this starts well before getting near Premiere. The person aiming (not vaguely pointing) the microphone is the key person. It is this person, who by adjusting their aim, by hearing the result in their headphones that has the quality of recording literally in their hands.

Audio is not something that you can rely on a plug-in, or mixer setting to control. There are plug-ins for audio workstations to remove unwanted reverberation, but even when you remove it (and their results are very variable) it still leaves an off-axis mic, which sounds poor. I'm firmly a believer in people have more impact on sound than equipment, in the same way as expensive cameras and lenses don't guarantee great composition.

So ......... who is capturing the sound? An expert with good ears and decent monitoring, or the only person available who has been told to point the mic towards whoever is speaking, and don't get it in the picture!
 
paulears said:
, or the only person available who has been told to point the mic towards whoever is speaking, and don't get it in the picture!
Click to expand...
Frequently, an unpaid PA who doesn't have a clue. I prefer the term 'polishing a turd' for attemping to salvage poorly recorded sound after the fact.
 
paulears said:
So ......... who is capturing the sound? An expert with good ears and decent monitoring, or the only person available who has been told to point the mic towards whoever is speaking, and don't get it in the picture!
Click to expand...

Well, this definitely wasn't a pro or a paid production ;). We're just a few friends that got together last minute to shoot a sketch. The dialog was captured by a friend who had never done it before. Before we shot, I went over how I wanted him to do it and we practiced for a little while. I had him stay relatively close-- within a few inches from their head for the most part, with the mic aimed directly at their mouths.

I didn't expect it to sound "good" necessarily, just acceptable for a small sketch. What I'm wondering about is in a location which is semi indoor/outdoor, like outside of an apartment and I happen to catch some reflections, what's the best way to deal with that in post? Is there anything in premiere that might be able to tone down reverberations etc? Doesn't have to be perfect, just if there is something that can help with that right inside Premiere, I may as well take advantage.
 
You seem to have the impression that these things can be "fixed in post". For the most part THEY CANNOT.
If you want decent sound, then you must be more careful with the sound when you are shooting.
It is mostly "what you hear is what you got". There are no magic tricks or "filters" to get better sound.
From your description, we are assuming that you don't have the time, actors, or experience to even attempt "dialog replacement"
 
L1N3ARX said:
In post, what is the the best way to treat reverberations and / or echo?
Click to expand...

Audio guys will never answer that question directly.

You might find this thread interesting:
http://www.kvraudio.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=343343&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=0

Just keep in mind, a lot of movie audio is entirely off set. Foley and ADR are very common. And that's with production audio recorded by the best of the best with the best gear. If they can't do it, what chance do you have?
 
msorrels said:
Audio guys will never answer that question directly.

You might find this thread interesting:
http://www.kvraudio.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=343343&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=0

Just keep in mind, a lot of movie audio is entirely off set. Foley and ADR are very common. And that's with production audio recorded by the best of the best with the best gear. If they can't do it, what chance do you have?
Click to expand...

Thanks, finally a good answer ;)

I realize ADR is very common in the industry, but this is just a small thing for fun with friends. I'll do the best I can with what I have. If there was a budget, we'd choose our locations etc. In video, you shoot the best you can by exposing, pulling focus, framing etc. Although, if by chance one of those things was off, there's a a great many tools to assist you in treating those mistakes. It won't be perfect, but it's a nice help when the occasion calls for it.

I didn't realize this wasn't a forum for technical questions; more do this / don't do this type of thing. So, at least now I know. That link is really good, I've found help on another audio forum as well with my exact issue, so I'm working it out;))
 
I will take pity as well and suggest the zynaptiq (sp?) unveil plugin as well as izotope rx which i have not used. But yeah, try to get good production audio. Right mic, in close to mouth, put up sound blankets to help absorb reflections in hard walled/floored rooms. I understand on the no budget stuff theres only so much you can do but right mic and getting it in close still solves, in my opinion, most of the problems.
 
I didn't expect it to sound "good" necessarily, just acceptable for a small sketch.
Click to expand...


Well, that answers the question then =b If you don't expect anything much from it then a simple audio levelling, roll-offs and cutting to match it from cut to cut would have sufficed. But for the most part, running an expander on some of the clips might bring the background noises down a few decibels should help.

 
msorrels said:
Audio guys will never answer that question directly.

You might find this thread interesting:
http://www.kvraudio.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=343343&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=0

Just keep in mind, a lot of movie audio is entirely off set. Foley and ADR are very common. And that's with production audio recorded by the best of the best with the best gear. If they can't do it, what chance do you have?
Click to expand...

Questionable advice at best. Audio people always answer this question and don't side step it. There is no magic bullet. There are tools that can help, but many times the dialogue is negatively effected. The problem is the people asking the question never like the answer.

Some corrections:
-Yes, ADR does get used, but it isn't used as much as you think it is.
-The best of the best CAN do it. Jeff Wexler was the production sound mixer on The Last Samurai, and I would venture a bet he is the best of the best, and that movie had no ADR in it at all.

I will gently suggest that an attitude such as this towards sound will only hurt your career in film making. If you are always looking to fix things in post, then you didn't do your job properly on production, and you end up spending more money to fix a problem than if you had dealt with it properly on production.
 
I should back off a bit here and be fair. Action films, by their very nature, almost always require some ADR work. There is no way a sound mixer can get close enough on some high action scenes to capture anything.

I believe in fixing problems, I'm an engineer. Once you have already recorded something, the problem domain changes and preaching about how if you had used a better sound guy or the right gear you wouldn't have this problem doesn't solve the problem. It gets old and is generally unhelpful.

Once you have the shot, fixing the audio boils down to post work and re-recording. Audio signals are very processable. Can it solve every problem? No, not even close. But mastering audio is a very old artform. Take what you have and make it the best you can.
 
msorrels said:
If The Last Samurai has no ADR, can you explain this guy's IMDB entry:
http://www.imdb.com/name/nm1409340/filmogenre
Click to expand...

Mr. Moriarty did not act in "The Last Samurai." He was a part of the Loop Group. In order to capture the cleanest dialog possible from the principal actors, the on-set extras do not speak, they only move their mouths so it looks like they're speaking, or yelling or whatever; that's part of being a great extra, to look like your having an animated conversation (or whatever) without making a sound. This pretend dialog (or whatever) is replaced in audio post by a Loop Group, people who perform walla and do other vocal utterances to fill out the soundtrack, sort of like a vocal Foley team.

And, BTW, it is not unusual to ADR large parts of a film and not use the ADR performances in the final mix. It is a lot cheaper to have all of the principal and supporting actors immediately do dialog wilds and ADR for any section of the film where there is even the vaguest hint of a remote possibility where there may be a production dialog issue rather than calling them back over and over again when production dialog problems appear. So it is first and foremost a financial decision.

When a film is mixed the rerecording mixers have extraordinary tools available to clean up production sound, things like Cedar, which probably costs more than the budgets of most indie projects. In the event that the production dialog is unsalvageable then the rerecording mixers and the director will check out the (pre-edited/pre-synced) alternate dialog takes, next, the (pre-edited/pre-synced) dialog wilds and then the (pre-edited/pre-synced) ADR as a last resort.
 
L1N3ARX said:
In post, what is the the best way to treat reverberations and / or echo?
Click to expand...

msorrels said:
Audio guys will never answer that question directly.
Click to expand...

That's because the answer is to get it right when you are on set. Why? Because plug-ins like Reverb Remover, DeVerb, etc. are for fixing those pieces of audio that have just a little more reverb than the rest of the scene, not to fix poorly recorded, off-axis, reverb-drenched errors caused by poor boom handling. In other words, plug-ins like Reverb Remover, DeVerb, etc. are matching tools, not a correction tools.
 
No same person will answer that question directly because there is no one answer. Echo and reverberation are very complicated and removing them from a recording is a little like trying to get the black out of grey. You can use bleach but your not going to get white, and you may end up with something a lot uglier than grey.

The all ADR and Foley is both a myth and mostly wrong.

Good directors will avoid ADR at almost any cost. Films shoot a lot of ADR (if they have the budget) because IF they need it they may not be able to get the actors to do it since post happens after production and the actors are often off on other films.

So the first thing that happens is the dialog editors scour the tracks and mark what they think is problematic and the ADR folks will record all of that IF there is the budget. But very little is generally used. On lower budget films, say under 30 mill, only really bad dialog will have ADR shot for it at the start and they will roll the dice on things that might be salvageable.

Most of the sound you hear other than dialog and music is FX nor Foley. On a big film Foley often gets less than a week.

As a general rule (rarely broken) none of the ambiences from production will end up in the final film. Even on a low budget you can get rid of most of that junk. Even if it's the "right" sound it's off mic and sounds weird.

Plugins won't fix bad production. But generally a dialog track will have gone through some EQ and compression, along with being mixed and heavily edited.

But you don't want to play with it at all till you have it at least rough cut. You can't start trating clips out of context or you will end up with a mess.

msorrels said:
Audio guys will never answer that question directly.

You might find this thread interesting:
http://www.kvraudio.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=343343&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=0

Just keep in mind, a lot of movie audio is entirely off set. Foley and ADR are very common. And that's with production audio recorded by the best of the best with the best gear. If they can't do it, what chance do you have?
Click to expand...
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top