Help!!! Need to dile in audio ASAP!

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Indyreel

Well-known member
I'm mixing the audio on my first feature film and having trouble leveling the tracks.

When listening to the audio as I edit on my HP computer, the sound is consistent. Also, when I play the DVD of my film in the same computer, the sound is also consistent. But when I play the same DVD in any other device you can hear a large difference between the volume from one person to another.

I purchased a decent set of speakers and that didn't help. I then purchased a decent sound card and that didn't help.

does anyone know what's going on?
 
The issue is "translatability", that the mix will sound good on a nice home theater system, in a movie theatre and on the computer. A sonically isolated and balanced room is one part of this puzzle, or, even better, a real mix stage. Speakers that accurately reflect what you want to hear is another piece; "decent speakers" is relative. A third piece of this puzzle is real earned knowledge of how to mix films.
 
Actually, that's not the problem here. There is such a stark (very loud) difference from one actor to another as they speak that it has to do with the mix level. My problem is that I can't hear the actual levels while it's in my computer. So I'm wondering if there's some type of "auto levelling" type effect that my PC is applying to audio while played back on my computer.

Anyone?
 
Can you post your signal chain?

Program, computer, interface, monitor, room arrangement, ect... info?
 
Indyreel said:
Actually, that's not the problem here. There is such a stark (very loud) difference from one actor to another as they speak that it has to do with the mix level. My problem is that I can't hear the actual levels while it's in my computer. So I'm wondering if there's some type of "auto levelling" type effect that my PC is applying to audio while played back on my computer.

Anyone?
Click to expand...
The problem is still "decent speakers" and "decent sound card." To prperly mix you need to work in a calibrated environment. You should have proper studio monitor speakers, to start with. You don't have to spend a fortune but you need to step up several levels from computer multimedia speakers. Each speaker needs to have it's own independent level control - most monitors have their amplifier built in so that takes care of that requiremetn. Driving them should be a proper audio interface, preferrably an external firewire or USB device. You also need a sound pressure meter, the $50 model from Radio Shack is adequate. You start by setting the output levels on your sound card to unity gain and setting the master level in your editor so its level meters read zero with a -20dBFS sinewave tone. Then you switch to a -20dBFS pink noise signal, put the sound meter where your head will be when editing and adjust each speaker's level individually, muting the other, so the SPL meter reads +82dB (there are slightly different standards depending on whether its for theatrical, home theatre, or TV broadcast but 82 is a good medium) on its scale. Now you can mix by ear and have a good idea what its going to sound like on playback

Varying levels within a scene can be evened out by carefully applying normalization to the scene in your editor. You have to be careful though because competely uniiform levels are unnatural.
 
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Indyreel said:
Actually, that's not the problem here. There is such a stark (very loud) difference from one actor to another as they speak that it has to do with the mix level. My problem is that I can't hear the actual levels while it's in my computer. So I'm wondering if there's some type of "auto levelling" type effect that my PC is applying to audio while played back on my computer.

Anyone?
Click to expand...

Actually I think it probably is the issue though you two are saying it in different ways. Your system is not accurately playing back your sound. Yes there could very well be some "user friendly" sound auto level thing on your system. Only you can tell. There is no universal "thing" that is done to computer sound systems if that is what your asking. But you should not be using a "computer sound system" anyway. Computer speakers and consumer sound cards and such are all designed to make dodgy computer sound seem good. They are dedicated to lying to your ears. You need a system that will show you all the ugly bits.

There are plugins that will trash your sound into a normalized muck but you can't hope to apply one, and not have it trash the sound, until you have a system that will let you actually hear the whole sound.

Even inexpensive sound is expensive. That's why sound folks get testy when people ask them to do XYZ for free.
 
It would help to know what DAW you are using, and how you mixed. I've always mixed in Pro Tools and never had this problem. It sounds like your mix is the real issue here...and what you mixed on, and how you monitored.
 
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