Your sound editing techniques

K

Kugar13

Well-known member
I've read a standard is to isolate the voices, removing the background audio. Then place the background audio (looped) on another track so you can lower that level, providing a less obtrusive background. Then you can boost dialogue track without boosting the background (which may compete with the dialogue audio).

Any other ideas, methods, suggestions?

thx
 
Yes, you always benefit from the cleanest-possible dialog tracks, and from having your recordist get a few minutes of 'room noise' by itself. Otherwise you can find yourself in a world of grief when you're trying to intercut takes and shots where you have noticeable room noise under your dialog, that is discontinuous or intrusive.

This is why there's so much ADR work done, to get clean and controlled dialog when location shooting or an insufficiently controlled audio environment prevented good dialog-recording during actual filming.

Legend has it that Marlon Brando tended to mumble on purpose during shooting, so that the tracks would be unusuable and he could then tune his voice performance in ADR sessions to get what he felt was the best match of voice and physical performace.
 
Thx

Thx

Sad Max said:
Yes, you always benefit from the cleanest-possible dialog tracks, and from having your recordist get a few minutes of 'room noise' by itself. Otherwise you can find yourself in a world of grief when you're trying to intercut takes and shots where you have noticeable room noise under your dialog, that is discontinuous or intrusive.

This is why there's so much ADR work done, to get clean and controlled dialog when location shooting or an insufficiently controlled audio environment prevented good dialog-recording during actual filming.

Legend has it that Marlon Brando tended to mumble on purpose during shooting, so that the tracks would be unusuable and he could then tune his voice performance in ADR sessions to get what he felt was the best match of voice and physical performace.
Click to expand...


So, that's pretty much it? Isolate the dialogue from the background on the track, and then put the room tone back in on another track? Sounds about right. Sometimes you get worked up thinking it will be so much more....

An additional question: It's my understanding you can only import one clip in audition at a time. Does this mean you will have to do some sound doctoring without seeing the footage that goes with it when you use J or L sound cuts (currently can't think of the term, but when you stretch audio from one scene onto another scene)?


Is it best to mach audio from one shot to another (taking good audio from a shot where the camera is looking at the actor, and placing it on a shot where the actor has his/her back to the camera) in premiere pro, or audition?

The book (adobe classroom) that I have for premiere pro 2.0 and Audition (fantastic books) doesn't cover managing these 2 programs together in very much detail.

Thank you!
 
Well , there *is* a lot more to good sound editing...but starting with the best-possible recorded tracks will make everything else so much easier on you, in post.

I am entirely unfamiliar with Audition...but Premiere Pro opens with 3 audio tracks to begin with, and you can add more as you need them, or progressively mix down as required.

Maybe the terms you are looking for, are 'pre-lap' (sound that goes with the next image begins before the image cut) or 'over-lap' (sound from one image continuing over the next image).

Generally speaking, you want the most continuous-sounding audio possible, unless you are purposely making it discontinuous for a particular reason or effect. I've cut audio tracks that ended up patchworked together from multiple takes and angles; it's all about getting the best-sounding final track...
 
Sad Max said:
Well , there *is* a lot more to good sound editing...but starting with the best-possible recorded tracks will make everything else so much easier on you, in post.

I am entirely unfamiliar with Audition...but Premiere Pro opens with 3 audio tracks to begin with, and you can add more as you need them, or progressively mix down as required.

Maybe the terms you are looking for, are 'pre-lap' (sound that goes with the next image begins before the image cut) or 'over-lap' (sound from one image continuing over the next image).

Generally speaking, you want the most continuous-sounding audio possible, unless you are purposely making it discontinuous for a particular reason or effect. I've cut audio tracks that ended up patchworked together from multiple takes and angles; it's all about getting the best-sounding final track...
Click to expand...

I already have all the audio. It's pretty good, just some messy spots you can't control, but can clean up. I have to patch some audio w/ different shots b/c the mic is focused on the person who is facing the mic. Sometimes you wanna keep a shot on an actor even though the audio on the other actor is still running. Plus sometimes you don't care for the visual look, actors expression, etc on their good audio take you wanna spice in another shot. Make sense?

Thank you for your help!
 
was wondering if there are any audio pros that could give us/me some basic tips about how dialogue optimization is done. I know so close to nothing it's sad :crybaby:

obviously i'd like to remove hiss and improve quality so it doesn't sound like everyone's in a bathroom when they talk, but how? :zombie_smiley:

what are the top 5 tips to improving your audio quality in post? :dankk2:
 
I am not sure what you mean " isolate the dialogue from the background on the track". Do you intend to do this in Post ? Tricky/dificult / impossible

Record dialogue as clean as possible at source is the best way.

I am no audio pro but heres a tip or two... (pre post)

Best quality mics you can afford to buy or rent
Get them as close to the subject as possible
Use a good sound technician cos sound is tricky.
 
You can clip out hums/buzzes/etc using equalization, but the odds are that you will affect your recorded voices, too.

I'm with Shooter; there is really no substitute for a clean recording, from the start.

Part of your scout should be cataloging sources of noise at your location so as to be prepared to deal with them; for example, I assisted a while ago on a shoot in a bar, where we discovered (right before rolling) that the built-in fridge created hellacious noise, and could not be switched off...

For constant buzzes, hums, etc, you could possibly try getting a good loop of it, then inverting its phase and mixing it into your recorded sound; theoretically this would cancel the noise and leave you with cleaner dialog. But it's probable that it will also deaden out some of the voice-freqs you want, and will contribute extra noise, if you don't nail the phase adjustment perfectly.
 
...

...

Sorry I wasn't detailed with my situation. We're in post and have good audio for the most part. We're using good mikes and good techniques. When we plan to shoot at a location we go ahead of the time and check it out. We visit the same time of day we would shoot and figure out if their will be aircraft, trains, boats (not kidding), other various traffic, uncontrolled sounds, etc. Regardless we all know we'll have those moments where something will pop up, or we know exists, that we can't control.

For example. I tried to rent a trailer to pull our cars around for the film, but had a difficult time with the dealer that would rent the trailer to us. They didn't like the idea we were renting the trailer for various cars. It wasn't accepted by their policy. Yatta-yatta...I'm getting off track. So, we had to shoot some interior shots where the characters were driving in a hurry. Well, most of the cars were quiet, but one was a muscle car and particularly noisy. So, I hope to isolate the dialogue (character on the phone) from the engine. Then take the engine audio and make a separate track. Lower it so the dialogue is louder. I know the engine will be loud on the actual dialogue, so I can't omit the engine track, it would sound clear then rumble on the dialogue and clear on the moments of no dialogue. So, I'll put the engine track in and it has to be somewhat close to it's original loudness because it will be heard over the dialogue at it's original volume in comparison to the dialogue. So, I was wondering if anyone else did this in practice, or knew of any nifty tricks. I had forgotten about the reverse the audio and play it to isolate the offending sound trick. I wonder how many others I don't know and/or forgotten to do.

Also, I was wondering how everyone goes about doing their sound editing... particularly in Audition.

Thx
 
Sad Max said:
You can clip out hums/buzzes/etc using equalization, but the odds are that you will affect your recorded voices, too.

I'm with Shooter; there is really no substitute for a clean recording, from the start.

Part of your scout should be cataloging sources of noise at your location so as to be prepared to deal with them; for example, I assisted a while ago on a shoot in a bar, where we discovered (right before rolling) that the built-in fridge created hellacious noise, and could not be switched off...

For constant buzzes, hums, etc, you could possibly try getting a good loop of it, then inverting its phase and mixing it into your recorded sound; theoretically this would cancel the noise and leave you with cleaner dialog. But it's probable that it will also deaden out some of the voice-freqs you want, and will contribute extra noise, if you don't nail the phase adjustment perfectly.
Click to expand...


I had totally forgotten about the inverting of a sound and mixing it into the recorded sound! I'll heed your warnings of how it may contribute to noise. I'll play with it just to see the effects. Thx!
 
Thanks for your help

Thanks for your help

Shooter said:
I am not sure what you mean " isolate the dialogue from the background on the track". Do you intend to do this in Post ? Tricky/dificult / impossible

Record dialogue as clean as possible at source is the best way.

I am no audio pro but heres a tip or two... (pre post)

Best quality mics you can afford to buy or rent
Get them as close to the subject as possible
Use a good sound technician cos sound is tricky.
Click to expand...

Yeah, we're in post. Using Premiere Pro 2 and Audition together to mix the sound.

I was referring to removing the ambient sounds b/t the dialogue and then putting them on a loop on another track. That way I can level them down to keep from competing with the dialogue. Just a thought....

Any advice on post sound editing?
 
If thats what you are doing I would probably not bother looping them out to another track. I would wind the levels down to what you want between the dialogue. Hopefully the gaps are reasonably large.

I would use another "ambient fx" track to smooth and fill the bg with a constant.
 
Shooter said:
If thats what you are doing I would probably not bother looping them out to another track. I would wind the levels down to what you want between the dialogue. Hopefully the gaps are reasonably large.

I would use another "ambient fx" track to smooth and fill the bg with a constant.
Click to expand...
Wow, you just kept me from doing it the hard way.... I can't believe I let that slip my mind. Sure you can learn all you need about something (in this case a program), but it doesn't always mean you're gonna know the most efficient way to use it.
 
Since you are using Audition, the noise reduction filter can give amazing results with reducing a constant sound. It has the controls to dial in the amount of noise reduction you want. There's also a frequency envelope control so you can control how much noise reduction is applied to particular parts of the frequency spectrum. I have found this very handy for limiting how much damage is done to the dialog.

With the dialog over engine mix, you might also try doing some EQ on the engine track to reduce the levels just in the frequency range of the dialog. That way you can keep the deep rumble of the engine while reducing the portion of the engine noise that directly competes with the dialog.

Since you are using Audition, I hope you are using the version 2.0 multi-track mode for the mixing. The track automation features allow you to control just about any aspect of the mix including individual controls on filters much like keyframes in Premiere. The track automation is non-distructive so you can easily go back and tweek things. I really love it.

-Dan
 
As Always Thanks

As Always Thanks

TeleDan said:
Since you are using Audition, the noise reduction filter can give amazing results with reducing a constant sound. It has the controls to dial in the amount of noise reduction you want. There's also a frequency envelope control so you can control how much noise reduction is applied to particular parts of the frequency spectrum. I have found this very handy for limiting how much damage is done to the dialog.

With the dialog over engine mix, you might also try doing some EQ on the engine track to reduce the levels just in the frequency range of the dialog. That way you can keep the deep rumble of the engine while reducing the portion of the engine noise that directly competes with the dialog.

Since you are using Audition, I hope you are using the version 2.0 multi-track mode for the mixing. The track automation features allow you to control just about any aspect of the mix including individual controls on filters much like keyframes in Premiere. The track automation is non-distructive so you can easily go back and tweek things. I really love it.

-Dan
Click to expand...


I am using Audition 2.0, as well as PP2.0.
As always thanks for your advice! I'll put it to good use!
I hope to one day return the favor.... =)
 
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