WorkFlow for editing audio,

V

vrbhu

Active member
Hi,
I never had a very good luck with audio.
I always have to edit my audio ( dialogs) after the shoot, sometimes cleaning them, sometimes amplifying them etc..
but now i want to know what is the proper work flow of a sound editing in a film.

The way I do it is I first edit the scene in PP2 and then after I finish my editing I export each clip's audio in Adobe Audition and then edit it there.
But I find this work flow to be clumsy. The reason is when I export it to Audition the audio is rendered separately as a .wav file and it becomes unlinked to the video.
Now suppose I want to increase a clip by 1 sec, I end up increasing only the video and not the audio as Audio file in the timeline now is not linked, so i have to go back again and bring the clip from the original footage and re edit the sound..

Please tell me a good workflow which I can follow..
also would like to know any books for this...

-thanks as always
Vivek
 
As for a good book on dialog editing, this book is the best (and only that I know of) book that is specifically devoted to dialog editing for film and tv.

Dialog Editing for Motion Pictures: A Guide to the Invisible Art

Dialog editing is a difficult skill to master and good dialog editors are worth their weight in gold. For what you are talking about, you're best bet would be to export an OMF from Premiere to bring into Audition. That will keep all of your audio in sync to what the picture edit and it will also maintain your cuts and track layout.

But trust me, get the book if you are serious about learning dialog editing.
 
Brad! :happy:

I also got this book and by far it's the best material that covers about dialogue editing, which was also recommended by Brad. Enjoy it.
 
Hi,
Thanks for responding..I will definitely buy that..
well, would it be possible for you to brief me the workflows that you follow or generally being followed in the industry ..
i want to know what all equipment i need to have to do a decent sound editing..

-Vivek
 
As far as equipment needed for sound editing, you don't need all that much. It's not like FX editing where you need a large library of stuff. You really just need a good audio editor, and a good way to monitor what you are listening to. When doing detailed editing like dialog and Foley, I like to use headphones because you can hear every little click and abnormality. It's good to check on a decent pair of monitors at the end just so you get a sense of what it sounds like on speakers. The most important piece of equipment, as always, are your ears.

Generally I get an OMF from the picture editor containing all of the audio cuts that they made. Get long handles on the OMF. I'll sometimes even ask for as long as 30 second handles, but 5-10 seconds are usually good enough. You'll also want a Quicktime of the final picture cut with the current audio from the editor's timeline. It's helpful if the left channel of audio in the quicktime is dialog only. The Quicktime and the OMF should have a 1 frame audio and picture sync pop at the head and tail of each reel. The sync pop's should come exactly 2 seconds before the first frame of picture and two seconds after the the last frame of picture. If you're working on a professional movie, you'll also want the original location audio files (tapes), Sound reports to find which take is where, marked scripts (to find which lines are in which takes), and a picture and audio EDL are handy if the region names in the OMF don't correlate to the scene, shot and take.

That might seem like a lot (and I'm probably forgetting a lot) but that is the way professional dialog editors get their materials. I'm not even mentioning the actual editing. In my experience, the dialog editor then hands over the Pro Tools session for the mix. In a small movie, you can get by with an OMF (very long handles please), Quicktime with guide track, and other audio files from location shoot.

I hope that helps. Dialog editing can be very rewarding when solving problems or salvaging takes that were previously headed for the ADR room.

Good luck and have fun!
 
Thanks a lot Brad. it was a wonderful help!
I will definitely buy that book to understand more of what you say...i am a bit rusty in this area but want to learn this art...
yeah true..dialog editing can be a savior in most precarious cirsumstances..

one more quick question: which version of pro tools should i use?
it seems that there is a basic, intermediate and a professional version..as of now i am doing short films and need it for that..
 
Luckily Dialog editing is not that intensive so you don't need a high end Pro Tools system. Pro Tools comes in basically three flavors: M-Powered (M-Audio hardware and special Pro Tools software), LE (Digidesign hardware with light version of Pro Tools), and TDM/HD (super expensive hardware and top of the line software). Unless you already have a compatible M-Audio interface, I would just get an MBox Mini. You'll probably want to get DV Toolkit 2. It gives you Digitranslator which is necessary to open OMFs and AAFs and it also allows you to view the timecode ruler as well as some helpful editing functions and plug-ins. So that's about $1500 to start off.

Honestly, if it's just you working on your own material, I would stick with what you have or use some of other software like Digital Performer. If you want to collaborate with other people or edit sound professionally, you have to know Pro Tools.
 
One other little bit of info that can make PT a lot more affordable is the "Academic version". I had never heard of this till recently but for $150 you get the M-powered version plus some of the DV toolkit features. I haven't looked too closely since I already have PT. But you get TC and I believe Digi Translator and poss Vocalighn.
It's a great deal IF you want to learn PT.
 
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