How do I make music sound like it's being played in the background of the scene?

A

Angelshare1

Well-known member
I've got a scene in a jazz bar and I have my royalty free perfectly mixed mp3 track. Only problem is it sounds too good as if it's part of the sound track rather than being played by a band in the background. (Or on the bars sound system.) How do I make this sound more "real" and less mp3ish?

I'm using premiere and was thinking of a audio effect where it was either muffled somewhat or echoey. I was also just thinking of playing it on my stereo with a comfortor over the speaker and recording it on my hyper cardio to muffle and crapen it up a bit.

Any other suggestions? I'm a DIY type guy and I've learned as I go along. I'm in post finally so I need to start learning some audio tricks. After experimenting and reading some of the posts on this board this is one thing I couldn't figure out.

Thanks!
 
Play it through your stereo, but don't muffle it; just fool around with the distance until you get a sound you like. This is known as "worldizing". If you need to "dull" the sound when you mix just use a low pass filter. Start at 20kHz and slowly work your way down until you're happy with it.

BTW, you may want a mix of both the original and the worldized versions; maybe not, but it's worth experimenting.
 
Turn it way down and add some room reverb. Not a big room with long decay time. Look in your auduio plugins for Reverb. Make sure to set the reverb's mix level down or it will sound like you're under water. Often the plug-ins default to 100% mix level. Clap your hands in a similar room and listen. Then try to duplicate that with reverb.

You won't have to muffle it. Less volume gives the illusion of less high end clarity. Get the actors voices where you like them level wise, then turn up the music to taste.
 
If you can Worldizing generally sounds better and more "real" than anything you can do with plugins. If you can't then the convolution reverbs can get pretty close.
 
One other note on "worldizing". Try talking to bars that are similar to the place you're emulating, and see if you can come in before they open or after close to record on their real system.

Playing it back in your bedroom on computer speakers is a step in the right direction, but the speaker choice and room also effect how "worldized" a sound gets.
 
Good point that I don't think we made clear enough. The ideal worldizing is done in the exact space it is supposed to sound like it's in. You can often cheat pretty far from that ideal and still get really good results but the closer the space you use sounds to the space you want, the better.
 
Noiz2 said:
Good point that I don't think we made clear enough. The ideal worldizing is done in the exact space it is supposed to sound like it's in. You can often cheat pretty far from that ideal and still get really good results but the closer the space you use sounds to the space you want, the better.
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Awesome! Thanks guys!
 
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