Using Audio Track Compression, and Ac3 exporting for a Musical Play

[Matt Grunau]

Hi all. I recently had a wonderfull shoot of a local high school perfoming a musical. The sound is great. There are places where there is only one singer, and only a few instruments accompaning. And there are places with the full band and full cast singing.

The entire play was piped into the DVX at Line out of the mixing board. I have applied a Track Compression plug with 3:1 compression starting at -18 db. The effect is great. Everything is brighter and much louder where needed, and things balance wonderfully. But, when there is a louder section with the full band and many singers, the dbs can go as high as +4. I want to maintain the sound quality and leveling/boost the compressor brings, but I obviously cant clip that high.

If I use a simply volume envelope to decrease the louder parts will this affect the job the compressor is doing and potentially negate its great effect on the overall audio? Or, is there a way (and should I) to keframe the Master Audio just for those parts?

Lastly, I play on doing a surround mix of the whole thing using the back channels either with a light reverb, or a stero expander (or both) which from initial tests sounds great. I want to export as an AC3 and I know that I can disable the post processing Compression>Film presets to keep it as loud as I want it. I also saw there were Music options under the same post processing options. Since this is a musical, and there is not a lot of dynamic range, would the Musical filter be ok? Or what would be a good settings for AC3 output to give me the best results?



Rather large post, so thanks for any help. I REALLY want this to come out great. This has the potential to be a fantastic work and allow me to give something back to the students who worked so hard. The actual shoot was a day they came back in SPECIFICALLY for the video, so we could have better lighting, proper camera placement, and no crowds/heads on camera. All the makeup, and 2+ hours of on stage time (to say nothing of other preperation), and the band showed up also ( unpaid for the few profrssionals who were) and only for a video shoot. These kids really did a hell of a job. I want my work to give them that back.


THanks again.

 

[JohnnyRoy]

When I do school plays I always place a volume envelope on the audio track to lower the songs (which tend to be louder because everyone is singing) and raise the dialog that is low (some people just don’t project as well as other). This will not mess up your compressor at all. If anything to will help the compressor do a better job without too much pumping to make up for extreme differences.

Sometimes raising a low dialog will introduce more background noise. For these sections I split them out and process them in Sound Forge with noise reduction. I use BIAS Sound Soap 2 and it does a great job.

Also when I record the audio, I split the feed into two channels and record one lower than the other (i.e., mono feed into stereo recorder with one volume lower than the other). This way if one channel gets too loud, I can switch to the other channel. I usually take my feed direct from the mixing console using my Marantz PMD660. That eliminates any tether to my camera and leaves the camera audio free for room ambiance and crowd noise (but without a crowd in your case that would be moot). In a 5.1 mix this allows you to place the audience behind the person listening. Sort of like having a front row seat. ;-) If you’re into 5.1 you might want to try this next time (i.e., crowd reaction in rear speakers).

If you really want the audio to shine, get a plug-in like iZotope Ozone 3 and use some of the mastering presets to polish the sound. It really makes a big difference in the final quality and makes the performance sparkle.

As for AC3 profiles, I don’t know what to recommend. I haven’t played with them much.

~jr

 

[Matt Grunau]

When I do school plays I always place a volume envelope on the audio track to lower the songs (which tend to be louder because everyone is singing) and raise the dialog that is low (some people just don’t project as well as other). This will not mess up your compressor at all. If anything to will help the compressor do a better job without too much pumping to make up for extreme differences.

Sometimes raising a low dialog will introduce more background noise. For these sections I split them out and process them in Sound Forge with noise reduction. I use BIAS Sound Soap 2 and it does a great job.

Also when I record the audio, I split the feed into two channels and record one lower than the other (i.e., mono feed into stereo recorder with one volume lower than the other). This way if one channel gets too loud, I can switch to the other channel. I usually take my feed direct from the mixing console using my Marantz PMD660. That eliminates any tether to my camera and leaves the camera audio free for room ambiance and crowd noise (but without a crowd in your case that would be moot). In a 5.1 mix this allows you to place the audience behind the person listening. Sort of like having a front row seat. ;-) If you’re into 5.1 you might want to try this next time (i.e., crowd reaction in rear speakers).

If you really want the audio to shine, get a plug-in like iZotope Ozone 3 and use some of the mastering presets to polish the sound. It really makes a big difference in the final quality and makes the performance sparkle.

As for AC3 profiles, I don’t know what to recommend. I haven’t played with them much.

~jr

Thanks for the response. Those are some really good ideas.

Is iZotop the same kind of masterer like BBE Sonic Maximixer or Waves L1 Ultramaximizer+?

 

[JohnnyRoy]

Is iZotop the same kind of masterer like BBE Sonic Maximixer or Waves L1 Ultramaximizer+?

Similar yes. Ozone 3 has 6 mastering tools in one, (Paragraphic EQ, Mastering Reverb, Loudness Maximizer, Multiband Harmonitc Exciter, Multiband Dynamics, & Multiband Stereo Imaging) but you get the idea. They all add a bit more than what as there originally and make for better audio.

~jr