Post process studio recording to sound like recorded outside

J

JackBayer

Well-known member
Hello,

I am in the middle of cutting of a short film. We finished shooting in September.
It´s about a musician. He plays the violin. There are 2 scenes where he plays a certain piece outside in his neighborhood.

It´s winter now and our professional violinist told us that recording outside won´t work until it´s warmer, due to cold fingers and crappy sounding violin.

So the question at hand would be, if it is possible at all and if yes how difficult it would be to post process a studio recording of our piece to sound like being recorded outside?

Also, can I enhance the possible outcome during recording by doing this or that?

And in which way should this be approached? I´d guess low-cut combined with reverb on the largest room setting?

I read somewhere that I could playback the studio recording through a good stereo in the outside and re-record it. Any thoughts on that?

Thanks for your input!
 
For me, getting stuff that was recorded inside to sound like it's outside was always a big problem. I guess I just don't know all the tricks, and even then, when I'm watching a movie that has an exterior shot with ADR, it's painfully obvious that it's ADR because it sounds like it was recorded in a studio.

I think start with a low cut, and maybe a really subtle delay, as if the sound is bouncing off the environment, unless it's a big open area. What's going to help sell this is the backgrounds. If you have the time, then go out and record the studio music being played back outside using really good equipment, but I've never done that, so I can't say if it's a good solution or not based on personal experience.
 
Altiverb has some great presets (business park and forest). Other IR reverbs probably do as well. It's subtle but very effective as along as you mix it correctly. You also need to mix in a good BG/ambience to complete the illusion.

BTW, I've gotten some really terrific production sound that almost sounded like ADR.
 
For this to function any where near realistic you have to record in a VERY dead studio (NO reflections or as little as possible)

then it depends on your location for the piece, is it in the woods? in an alley? you can recreate the environment somewhat with a good reverb plug in , but you will not be using it in the traditional ways, unfortunately it takes alot of sound skillz to realy be able to fake outdoors and is very hard to describe as there is no formula due to different locations that call for different things in order to simulate. It is do-able by the right person.

best hint I can give is : use the shortest most diffused algorithm at a VERRY short decay almost none, then play with your pre-delay to size your environment.

definitely low cut , but if the shot is tight on the instrument you dont want to cut too high, as the low end will attribute to its proximity.

reduce upper mids around 5k or so to cut some of the presence, (play with the freqs on that one) it will depend on the instrument where the presence sweet spot is at.

there is a few more tricks you can try, but then Ill be here all day... lol
 
Steve House said:
No reverb. Reverb comes from the sound bouncing off of the environment. Outdoors there's nothing for it to bounce off of.
Click to expand...

Outside in a field there is nothing to bounce off of. He said neighborhood, so indeed there maybe a lot of things for the sound to bounce off of.

In either case there are two things you can do in post to simulate the sound.

The best is to "Worldize" it. Take clean recordings and play them back on a system where the scene is set and rerecord it in the world.

This works great if you can find a place that works and is quiet. It was famously used for the music in American Graffiti but also for a lot of the music in O'Brother Where Art Thou.

The second is not as good a choice but works sometimes and that is to run it through a convolution reverb with an outside IR.

If your in a very Urban setting you may also be able to fake it with slap-back echos and some EQ.
 
Steve House said:
No reverb. Reverb comes from the sound bouncing off of the environment. Outdoors there's nothing for it to bounce off of.
Click to expand...

There are plenty of things for sound to bounce off of in a neighborhood. And the sound would change as the perspective of the camera shot changes depending the intended camera distance in the cut, as the performer moved down the street next to a large gothic church for example.
A convolution reverb and use of EQ will help. Re-recording can work as well. What size rooms do you have access to now?

Good Luck with your project!

Dave
 
So you want the guy to sync-play to a pre recorded track? If you must, I'd just record the sound happening in the area you are shooting, then put the violin track over that. But the violin track should have no wall reflections at all or it will scream "fake". A movie is ART, so it's not as important to make it sound EXACTLY like it would in the area (sound bouncing off houses). Just get a nice non-reflectice recording blended with nat-sound / tone of the area and it will be fine. NO VERB
 
I'm very confused by people suggesting adding reverb - when the real problem is simply that you need distance from the source, but none of the reverb that this distance causes in the studio. Outside there is rarely total silence, so 4-5 minutes of recorded street silence laid underneath a very clean recording will work fine. you'll need to experiment with your recording space, to get as close to an anechoic space as you can. Plenty of proper sound control - so absorbers and diffusers are great, but without them, drape duvets over mic boom stands to deaden down the sound as much as you can. Mix the two together, probably also tailing off the eq on the studio recording to gently roll off the bass end. I've done this with acoustic guitar, but no reason to think a violin will respond differently. One day somebody will design a plug-in that can remove reverb!
 
People may be using mixed meanings with the term "reverb". Reverb, the real thing not the box, occurs anywhere you have any bounce and decay time. Out doors the distances to reflecting surfaces even in urban areas make the reverb sound more like a slap back echo, but that is in fact the "reverberation" of that space. Echo is reverb with some LONG delays. When it comes to boxes (and software) convolution "reverbs" are not just reverbs, in a lot of ways they are not reverbs at all. They take a sample of how a known sound is modified by the environment and attempt to recreate that modification. As such you can get impulse responses of "spaces" that have no reverb, like cel phones, or have very little like open fields.

You may get away with dry sound and BG's but often it doesn't sound very "real". But "real" is relative. The kid with the viola has a good amount of bounce on it from the wall and street etc. That is part of the reason it sounds good. That is the "reverb" of that space.

The biggest problem with using boxes to place something outside is that it's very hard to mimic distance. Convolution "reverbs" can if the impulse was taken at a distance. It is also very hard to remove the "sound" of a room and very little music is recorded in a truly dead space.

But just worldizing it solves both problems.

Anyway when those who have mentioned Reverb are not talking about some big plate reverb box. That would sound wrong.
 
Just a thought about the story, script, film, and/or music: Is it supposed to sound a certain way? Romantic? Cold? Bright? Majestic?

The story and the footage might give you some guidance. I know that the thread has been about taking solo violin music recorded inside and making it sound like it was outside. Has the director given you any guidance in terms of what the music is supposed to do to the storyline. A solo violin (especially from a so-so performer) without any reverb may show the player's lack of skill. Just a thought.
 
Wow! First thanks to all for your input.

I´ll try to reply:

@nyvideo: As my brother and I are the directors we know exactly, how it should sound. It´s a beatiful piece but our poor violinist gets sick while he plays it so the music must reflect that in becoming successively harder on the instrument. That´s why we enlisted a pro player for the recording. When we were shooting we played a commercial recording of the music as guidance for our actor (who actually can play the violin aswell).

@many about "reverb":
I´m now sure what the word means and how it matters to my task. The scene takes place twice, once on a place in munich (Link, you can street view this if you like) and the other time on a roof top. So once I would need a little bounce and once probably not.

We may get the chance to get the music recorded in a studio of the Bayerischer Rundfunk, they have everything. If so we will try re-recording outside in similiar conditions to get as much of an original sound as possible. Maybe we´ll get away with it. And if not we have quite some info on how to go at it in post.

Edit: I liked the comment about it being art, sometimes I forget that. For our purpose we´re probably more than happy if we can sell it at all. It´s just now that we´re cutting to a studiorecording from itunes and it hurts really badly how much it won´t integrate with the footage just by its audio qualities.

Thank you, much appreciated!
 
Last edited:
JackBayer said:
...
Edit: I liked the comment about it being art, sometimes I forget that. For our purpose we´re probably more than happy if we can sell it at all. It´s just now that we´re cutting to a studiorecording from itunes and it hurts really badly how much it won´t integrate with the footage just by its audio qualities.

Thank you, much appreciated!
Click to expand...

A point that often gets forgotten. You are not recreating reality you are creating the "reality" your film is set in. In the end it's more important to not break the "rules' of your created reality than it is to uphold the rules of the reality we live in.
 
"The Village"... outside field (well, there's a forest)

Anyway...some parts there's a lot of reverb that only would be "logical" in a large room. And yet...it's used.

Like when Evy is searching for that other guy and she walks on the wooden stairs...
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top