What do I do about this audio mixing problem with the audio engineer?

I

ironpony

Carbonite Member
I hired him to make all the audio match and make it sound like it was in the same room. I gave him all the audio on separate tracks, so he can mix them properly. I also gave him a copy of the whole movie with the dialogue edited in, for his reference.

But then he tells me that instead of mixing the separate dialogue tracks I gave him, he just took the movie I gave him for reference, and mixed those tracks. But all the dialogue tracks are on one track! There are scenes where more than one person are talking at the same time, and one guy is behind a locked door, while he is talking, in the scene. So his reverb will be very different.

How is he going to make everything sound proper, when it's all on the same track? He is expecting to give me the movie soon after telling me this, and I am suppose to pay him. I will listen to the movie first, but I feel like he really ripped me off. Did he?
 
Can you specify what, exactly, you mean by "all the audio on separate tracks" and "with the dialog edited in"?

You should have provided him a reference movie (no audio necessary) with leader, 2-pop, and even BITC (Burned-In Time Code). Along with that, you should have provided him with an OMF or AAF exported from your NLE.
 
Yes, what do you mean by, "I gave him all the audio on separate tracks" and how. (OMF, AAF)
- Did you just give him the raw location files from the sound recordist?
- What NLE was the project edited on?
- What DAW is the postie using?
 
What I mean is is that I put all of actor A's dialogue on track 1 for example if the audio tracks in Premiere Pro. All of actor's B's on track 2. And so on and so fourth. I gave him each track so he can mix them separately. Those are the raw tracks, with no post mixing done to them yet.

I don't get how he is going to separate three voices on the same track and give them different reverbs. Especially since one character is narrating, while the actor's voices are suppose to be in the background as you hear the narrator. How is the audio engineer going to do that! He says he can though, which is what I hired him for.
 
ironpony said:
What I mean is is that I put all of actor A's dialogue on track 1 for example if the audio tracks in Premiere Pro. All of actor's B's on track 2. And so on and so fourth. I gave him each track so he can mix them separately. Those are the raw tracks, with no post mixing done to them yet.

I don't get how he is going to separate three voices on the same track and give them different reverbs. Especially since one character is narrating, while the actor's voices are suppose to be in the background as you hear the narrator. How is the audio engineer going to do that! He says he can though, which is what I hired him for.
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Okay, so you sent him an OMF/AAF from Premiere? Or did you export each track as a complete sound file (which is what your above comment makes it sound like)?

And what about the other audio that you say he used? Was that a "stereo" audio mix that was exported with the reference movie?

And, as Rick asked, do you know which DAW this guy is using?

And did you send him the music and FX as well?
 
I edited all the dialogue tracks into the movie, and synced them up. I then exported each audio track individually. I didn't do OMFs. I am still learning too, so I just did that for now, at my skill level. They are stereo tracks, cause my sound recorder only records in stereo. But I had the mic plugged into the left channel only, so the right channel is blank on all of them.
 
Okay, you are answering only about one out of every four questions, so it's going to be hard to get you to a solution. Let's recap, and please answer ALL of these to the best of your ability:

1) We know now that you exported the audio, track by track, and sent those files. But you say he used other audio in to "mix" the project. What was that other audio? Did you export a "stereo mix" with the video?

2) What DAW (that's the audio editing/mixing software) is he using?

3) Did you send music and FX as well?
 
ironpony said:
How is he going to make everything sound proper, when it's all on the same track? He is expecting to give me the movie soon after telling me this, and I am suppose to pay him. I will listen to the movie first, but I feel like he really ripped me off. Did he?
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Black on dark grey makes your posts virtually unreadable... are you trying to protect people from 'spoilers', with every post???

Anyway...

The unanswered questions such as type of program the 'audio engineer' is using, are appropriate. Perhaps you haven't asked that of the 'audio engineer'.

In most NLE's one can 'cut' a chunk of audio track, and apply a 'filter' to the chunk, independent of what is before and after the cuts in the same track. However, NLE's are not popular for audio work from reading here, and most of the 'audio' tools that I'm learning about, seem to apply filters/effects to 'whole tracks'.

Alternatively, the 'audio engineer' may have decided that your package with a variety of tracks was 'too complex' to do quickly, and used the single track of your reference movie to then 'chunk up' into different tracks, and then apply filters/effects, as required.

On reading your later post, I can almost guess that the person doing the audio work did not get enough information about the individual audio tracks to assemble them in their audio application.

The point of having an OMF or EDL output is to match up the individual 'audio tracks' with where in the movie they go.

That is if I understand correctly what you did...
 
Okay sorry for the confusion.

1. He didn't use any other audio. I don't know where I said he is using other audio. He is just using the audio I gave him. Where did I say that exactly, I must have implied something wrong. I just gave him a mono mix for reference, not stereo.

2. He is using Pro Tools he said.

3. There is music but it's not finished being scored yet. There was a delay so he is going to do that when we meet. Because of the delay he has agreed to work past the original agreed date, to get the music put in right. There is no music on the current movie.

Sorry about the black on grey I noticed that but did not know what happened there.
 
Not to derail the thread, but in what way is knowing the DAW the sound guy is going to use help you answer the question, guys?
 
ironpony said:
1. He didn't use any other audio. I don't know where I said he is using other audio. He is just using the audio I gave him. Where did I say that exactly, I must have implied something wrong. I just gave him a mono mix for reference, not stereo.
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So, there's your answer... going back to your first post. So, let's see if we have all the pieces here:

- You exported a reference movie with mixed audio.
- You also exported each dialog track, one by one, as its own sound file.
- Instead of using the separate dialog files you sent, he used the mix that was embedded in the reference movie.
- He's using ProTools.
- This is dialog only, and has no music, effects, Foley, etc.

Is this all correct?
 
Yep that sounds all correct. When I say I exported a referrence movie with the dialogue tracks put in, no changes have been made to the tracks and they are all in their original form, but just all mixed to one mono track.
 
As others have noted.... If you want this done correctly, You should have provided him with an OMF or AAF along with the reference movie.
 
ironpony said:
Yep that sounds all correct. When I say I exported a referrence movie with the dialogue tracks put in, no changes have been made to the tracks and they are all in their original form, but just all mixed to one mono track.
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Right. Doesn't matter if the individual tracks have had any kind of level adjustments or not: if multiple tracks are exported to a single file, they are mixed as opposed to split.

It does seem a little odd that he chose to use a mixed sound file rather than the split tracks that you sent, but you aren't making his job any easier. Exporting an OMF or AAF really isn't an "advanced" technique. It's a simple function available in Premiere Pro, and it exports all the dialog tracks, with all edits intact. When it's opened in ProTools, the PT edit window looks just like your PPro timeline's audio section. You can also specify handles, which means that audio before and after each clip is included. This allows the dialog editor to pull the ends out if needed to smooth edits.

Having what are, effectively, stems from you means that he doesn't have any leeway for editing. Plus, I'm wondering if you included any room tone in any of the tracks. If not, the dialog edit will be even more difficult. Getting all the dialog tracks to sound consistent and believable isn't just a matter of adding reverb: it takes the use of room tone, careful use of EQ, and mixing levels.

If you hired him as a dialog editor, at least for the time being, you should have provided him with all the tools he needed. And if you weren't sure of what those tools were, you should have asked and, if needed, researched how to get those tools out of PPro and over to his system. You can always export an OMF/AAF of just the music and effects later, and he can pull that into the same PrTools session with the dialog.

All that aside, it does sound like your guy chose a lazy rout when he had at least some semblance of separate tracks available to him. It would have taken some extra time and attention to get all those in and lined up, but it still makes little sense that he chose a mixed audio file from the reference movie. And he should have raised the question immediately as to why you didn't send an AAF/OMF, yet he went with the simplest thing he had. My first question to him would be, "Why?"

Here's your "hindsight is 20/20" lesson for the day, for anything you do in the future:

- Export an OMF or AAF (talk to your post engineer about preference, which one s/he needs for preferred workflow).
- Export a reference movie of JUST the video that includes a leader with 2-pop (make sure that there's an audio 2-pop on each audio track as well). There's no need for an audio mix embedded in the reference movie.
- For small, low/no-budget projects like this it doesn't make as much sense to send dialog now and everything else later. Send a complete OMF/AAF with everything included.
 
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ironpony said:
Yep that sounds all correct. When I say I exported a referrence movie with the dialogue tracks put in, no changes have been made to the tracks and they are all in their original form, but just all mixed to one mono track.
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Let me put this in a different way...

If you were to ask me to take a 'concept reference movie' and a 'handful of shots, say 50 or so', then assemble the result into the final edit film, I'd probably decline your business.

The reason being, 'assembling' the 'handfull of 50 shots' lining them up with the 'reference movie' would be a task just to get to the point of 'editing' your movie.

This is just for the visuals.

I would imagine that it would be even more problematic for the audio, trying to get the separate dialog files lined up at the right place in the reference movie to then begin work on the audio.
 
So IP, you rendered each separate timeline audio track from the Premiere NLE. (or stereo pair) Which gave you isolated tracks, all starting from the head of the timeline. (ie: 00:00:00:00) Right?
Can we then assume you rendered non-data compressed WAVE or AIFF files?
But the postie chose not use the iso track files and instead used the mono reference audio track?

PS- Thanks for changing to a white font. I had to copy and paste your OP to a text editor to read it.
 
I provided him with what he asked for. But he should have still worked on the individiual tracks which is why I gave them to him. I think I can persuade him to go back and fix his mistakes and work on them individually, since that is the professional thing of him to do. I know what I did was not professional either, but I am not one in that area, and he is.

I want to try to save as much of this project as I can. What do I do now? I can try to persuade him that he didn't do what he was suppose to do, and to go back and fix the errors, since that's what I hired him for. If not, his payment is a waist. I couldn't send the music with it, since the music was not complete yet. He said that he had no problem working the dialogue now and music later. There is room tone in the tracks but it doesn't do any good since the room tone sounds different than the room tone recorded in the tracks. I recorded the audio myself, while someone operated the camera, of the movie, which I was directing.

But the room tone does not sound at all the same. I need to learn to record room tone properly. It probably does not sound the same cause the mic was put in a different place to record the room tones as oppose to where it was pointed to record the actor's dialogue. But we can reproduce the room tone from the dialogue tracks, that's not a problem. Well I am going to get bossy and tell him I'm not paying until he does it right, with the individual tracks. I hope this is a good way to go!??
 
His/her workflow isn't your problem. If he wants to use one dialog track or one hundred thousand dialog tracks, that is her/his business. All that matters is did s/he do the job they were hired to do. Did you get what you asked for sonically? Does the dialog sound good?

Also, how do you know what his/her workflow was? Were you sitting in on the editing session(s)? Or did you just get back a completed "mixed" predub of the dialog that you sent over.
 
Well I am paying the person so they are my employee in a way. I am still the boss aren't I? I mean if I pay a dentist to fill a cavity, does the dentist have the right to say, 'I don't do it that way, I pull the whole tooth, if something is wrong'.

I was not able to sit in as the person never invited me and just works alone I guess. They wanted to keep all the communication through email.
 
ironpony said:
Well I am paying the person so they are my employee in a way. I am still the boss aren't I? I mean if I pay a dentist to fill a cavity, does the dentist have the right to say, 'I don't do it that way, I pull the whole tooth, if something is wrong'.

I was not able to sit in as the person never invited me and just works alone I guess. They wanted to keep all the communication through email.
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Yes.. but does the dialogue predub sound good? It's like choosing a DAW - in the end, no one cares what software one used to mix/edit/NR or how it was done. All that really matters is that it sounds good.
 
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