How is vocalign for Foley?
- Thread starter ironpony
- Start date
Noiz2
Sound Ninja
NO. Foley is for adding sounds that are missing, vocalign needs the production sound to use as a sync reference.
And I think you may be confusing Foley with FX. The Foley artist is working to picture so sync is not really an issue.
It doesn't really help with the ADR but with the editor trying to sync the ADR after you have recorded it. It can also help syncing alternate takes.
And I think you may be confusing Foley with FX. The Foley artist is working to picture so sync is not really an issue.
It doesn't really help with the ADR but with the editor trying to sync the ADR after you have recorded it. It can also help syncing alternate takes.
Well what I mean is, I would be doing the sound effects to the picture. Doing foley. But doing foley with vocalign. But the sounds would not be missing. For example, on my camera, there is a mic that also records everything. Say I record an actor putting down a coffee cup on the camera's mic. But I do not have a good recording of it, for the professional sound track, which better mics will be used for. So can I use the camera's scratch track, as reference when recording sound effects, and thereby syncing to the video take?
One, Foley is a proper name and should always be capitalized.
Two, reference (production) sound is completely unnecessary for Foley sync, as Scott has already pointed out. If you are actually doing any Foley work, you're recording and watching visual playback as you perform the sounds to the picture, so sync is already (mostly) a given. After recording, the editing and mixing process will manually nudge the sounds as needed to get the layers of sound perfectly in tune with each other... because no one "sound" in film is actually just one sound, but is made of several things layered together.
By using VocAlign, you'll be over complicating the process with needless workflow. I mean, what if the sounds you create, as often is the case, have little or nothing to do with what production sound recorded? Remember that both Foley and FX make sounds that are larger than life, giving the sound mix a fantastic feel.
Two, reference (production) sound is completely unnecessary for Foley sync, as Scott has already pointed out. If you are actually doing any Foley work, you're recording and watching visual playback as you perform the sounds to the picture, so sync is already (mostly) a given. After recording, the editing and mixing process will manually nudge the sounds as needed to get the layers of sound perfectly in tune with each other... because no one "sound" in film is actually just one sound, but is made of several things layered together.
By using VocAlign, you'll be over complicating the process with needless workflow. I mean, what if the sounds you create, as often is the case, have little or nothing to do with what production sound recorded? Remember that both Foley and FX make sounds that are larger than life, giving the sound mix a fantastic feel.
David W. Jones
Veteran
Bottom line, as already pointed out above..... Vocalign is the wrong tool for doing Foley work.
Steve House
Veteran
When you shoot a dialog scene you want to AVOID recording footfalls, coffee-cup clinks, etc if you can possibly do so.
j1clark@ucsd.edu
Veteran
Sometimes I wonder... Vocalign is a useful tool for processing of human speech, in either dialog or singing, and matching up music tracks of instruments that were recorded separately. ... why? (rhetorical question...) because the human processing of video + audio (or audio + audio of separately recorded material...) for specifically speech and music is very sensitive to mismatches.
In the case of Foley, that is performed to the timing of the visuals of the film.
In the case of Sound Effects, those are 'composited' just as visual tracks are composited, by manual alignment, and judged and corrected, based on the resulting audio (or visual) effect.
If on the other hand, you were thinking that 'vocalign' would process an audio track, find all the 'thin tinkling tea cup sounds' in your video reference audio track, and match up your 'robust tea cup sound' with that... and adjust for the actual duration, etc. I don't think that's how it works...
j1clark@ucsd.edu
Veteran
On a completely tangential direction...
On a short film I directed last year, and still have not edited much... I didn't have my listening ears on, and I have a dialog sequence punctuated with high-heels. I haven't had time to play with this idea, and of course don't have the money for fancy noise abatement software, but the thought occurred to me to take the click of the heels from a non-dialog portion of the recording, phase invert it and add that the the dialog+click portion.
I'll probably try this, but is that something someone would do... or just pay the money for the fancy software and move on...
Richard Crowley
Veteran
I continue to hear many good things about Izotope RX2. Good equality audio repair, easy to use, and a pretty attractive price right now (US$299)
Foley needs vocalign like a fish needs a bicycle. The question itself is bizarre.
Foley needs vocalign like a fish needs a bicycle. The question itself is bizarre.
Noiz2
Sound Ninja
Phase inverting is not likely to help a lot since you are not inverting the "same" sound but one that is similar. So at best the cancelation won't be complete and at worst it will make it sound more distracting.
Rx spectral repair will probably remove them seamlessly. I removed Willie Nelsons distracted tapping of his foot during an interview for a documentary and it was fantastic. Director wanted to kiss my feet.
Ironpony, Vocalign will attempt to cut and stretch a sound to match another. This isn't going to help for a couple of reasons. First is you don't need that kind of sync for FX (with some VERY rare exceptions). People know what sounds come out when the lips move, you are many times half lip reading when you listen to someone. That isn't true with a tea cup. You could put in 1,000 different tea cups and they would all sound "real". But it's the "placement" that is important 99.99% of the time and Vocalign doesn't help with placement, you need to do that manually.
So after doing all you really need to do you would then be adding a step that you don't. If you are replacing an FX it's generally because you don't like the way it sounds or it's not there at all. So taking your "good" sound and trying to make it the same as your "bad" sound doesn't do you any good.
That said there is a chance that it could be of use in that last 0.001%. But even then it's probably going to be faster and easier to just cut, trim, or time stretch the sound.
A lot of us have tools that we only use 1-2% of the time. They tend to be the pricey ones. If you have enough cash to pay for a tool you will only use 0.001% of the time go for it. You might even find other things for it to do.
But for Foley it's not going to be a front line tool but a last ditch tool.
Rx spectral repair will probably remove them seamlessly. I removed Willie Nelsons distracted tapping of his foot during an interview for a documentary and it was fantastic. Director wanted to kiss my feet.
Ironpony, Vocalign will attempt to cut and stretch a sound to match another. This isn't going to help for a couple of reasons. First is you don't need that kind of sync for FX (with some VERY rare exceptions). People know what sounds come out when the lips move, you are many times half lip reading when you listen to someone. That isn't true with a tea cup. You could put in 1,000 different tea cups and they would all sound "real". But it's the "placement" that is important 99.99% of the time and Vocalign doesn't help with placement, you need to do that manually.
So after doing all you really need to do you would then be adding a step that you don't. If you are replacing an FX it's generally because you don't like the way it sounds or it's not there at all. So taking your "good" sound and trying to make it the same as your "bad" sound doesn't do you any good.
That said there is a chance that it could be of use in that last 0.001%. But even then it's probably going to be faster and easier to just cut, trim, or time stretch the sound.
A lot of us have tools that we only use 1-2% of the time. They tend to be the pricey ones. If you have enough cash to pay for a tool you will only use 0.001% of the time go for it. You might even find other things for it to do.
But for Foley it's not going to be a front line tool but a last ditch tool.
unclebob6958
Well-known member
Once again, you are looking for a "one-button" easy solution to doing audio post. It doesn't work that way.
Dialog editing is an art from that must be learned, practiced, practiced some more, then more learning and more practice.
Walking and doing props Foley is an art from that must be learned, practiced, practiced some more, then more learning and more practice.
Editing Foley is an art from that must be learned, practiced, practiced some more, then more learning and more practice.
Creating sound effects is an art from that must be learned, practiced, practiced some more, then more learning and more practice.
Editing sound effects is an art from that must be learned, practiced, practiced some more, then more learning and more practice.
And Rerecording/mixing is an even more esoteric art that requires extreme dedication to learning and practice.
As has been discussed here (and over on the forum where you are known as Harmonica, and in direct response to questions which you yourself posted) when you create sounds for picture most of the time you make them bigger than you think they need to be. The "real" thing almost never sounds real. These slightly to very over-the-top sounds fall back into perspective when you mix. Another reason to make things big is that during the mix it is relatively easy to make things smaller, but difficult to make them bigger.
Dialog editing is an art from that must be learned, practiced, practiced some more, then more learning and more practice.
Walking and doing props Foley is an art from that must be learned, practiced, practiced some more, then more learning and more practice.
Editing Foley is an art from that must be learned, practiced, practiced some more, then more learning and more practice.
Creating sound effects is an art from that must be learned, practiced, practiced some more, then more learning and more practice.
Editing sound effects is an art from that must be learned, practiced, practiced some more, then more learning and more practice.
And Rerecording/mixing is an even more esoteric art that requires extreme dedication to learning and practice.
As has been discussed here (and over on the forum where you are known as Harmonica, and in direct response to questions which you yourself posted) when you create sounds for picture most of the time you make them bigger than you think they need to be. The "real" thing almost never sounds real. These slightly to very over-the-top sounds fall back into perspective when you mix. Another reason to make things big is that during the mix it is relatively easy to make things smaller, but difficult to make them bigger.