dialogue Questions - Social Sound Design

Mixers: What are your Dialogue Editing Preferences?

2012-02-03T03:25:38Z

I have just come to a new town and am editing dialogue for a good number of different mixers who have very different preferences in how they like their dialogue edited. I would like to know if there are anymore common permutations I have not yet seen.

What do you like when you sit down at the board?

Do you like 4 frames or 2 frames fade outs and ins on scenes?

How long do you like your fades from character to character in a scene?

Do you like muted extra tracks on the dialogue tracks in addition to inactive AAF tracks at the bottom of the session window?

Do you prefer characters to consistently be on the same tracks? Do you require this throughout the project or just in a scene?

Do you want your dialogue editor to Izotope clicks and crackles?

Do you checkerboard your dialogue from one character to another even if it was recorded on one mic?

Removing background location music from documentary dialogue

2012-01-31T10:52:46Z

Has anybody had experience of removing location music from documentary dialogue? A filmmaker has approached me to tackle an issue with broadcast rights on the music coming from a stereo in the background during a couple of shots in her documentary. I was thinking of editing the dialogue as I would for a scripted film and then replacing the gaps with ambience from the shoot as well as a royalty-free music track of similar style fitting the reverb of the warehouse where the film is shot. I'm not sure how well this will work. Is this going to be insanely difficult? Any one else had a similar job in the past? Thanks Phil

Imported dialog track distorting

2012-01-16T20:54:34Z

I just imported the dialog audio from the QT video of this clip and for some reason the clip gets really distorted, but sounds fine on the actual QT video. I imported other SFX files into the session and they come out just fine. This is what the waveform (stereo) looks like: http://instagr.am/p/hz8UK/

What could be the problem here?

What is your ideal EQ for editing dialogue?

2010-09-01T19:20:42Z

Just like the title, what is your Ideal EQ for editing dialogue? Q3? Rennaissance? Audio Track? Sonnox? Stock DAW?

It seems like sometimes you might want a transparent EQ.

Conceptualising possessed double-voice dialogue

2012-01-20T11:32:36Z

I'm hitting a brick wall on a key bit of sound design on a show I'm working on. It's set in a magical fantasy world and the moment I'm having trouble with is when a mind control spell is cast on one of the characters. The script calls for having both the voice of the magician and the characters audible. So I've already got two dialogue tracks - one of the character and one of the magician in sync, but the tricky part is combining those voices in a believable way where each voice is recognisable, but it's clear that the magician is exerting his will here. I'm having difficulty with both coming up with creative solutions that work and technically achieving this effect.

A few of my early brainstorms and tests included thinking along the lines of David Bowie's Space Oddity, where Bowie sings and octave higher and and double tracks and octave lower - so the result is this beautiful, eerie harmony. But with two voices that idea goes nowhere. Playing around with the usual EQs, reverbs, delays just muddies the clarity of the dialogue and it still sounds like two voices stacked on top of one another. A bit of reverse pre-delay is nice, but that's the only element I've liked so far.

I should also add that the magician ADR was recorded to exactly match the delivery of the possessed character. Perhaps this was a mistake and I should have tried to have gotten some variations, say having the magician whisper his lines, like he's whispering a suggestion in their ear...hmmmm. Some second opinions would be most excellent. Thanks in advance!

Voiceover editing procedure - tips please.

2012-01-06T00:45:26Z

Hi folks - and Happy New Year!

I have been lurking around this fantastic site for a little while, but finally decided to ask a question.

I am gaining some freelance experience in the world of sound recording/dialogue editing, etc and have been working on some v/o's for a friend's web-based documentary.

My procedure has been this: in PT8 the mono files are first edited to fix mistakes, mispronunciations (where possible), sort timing and generally smooth out the talent's performance. Then I have been going into the volume track and adjusting the peak syllables/words to reduce the dynamic range somewhat. This part is pretty time-consuming, but it seems necessary to me. Using just the compressor would sound too heavy-handed and bring up the noise floor too much.

I can't remember the exact order just now, but my plug-ins are the 7-band eq, compressor, expander (as gate) and trim, with the Master meter to keep the peaks to around -8db.

Am I going about this in the most practical and efficient way, or are there some obvious improvements I can make?

Many thanks for any help!

When you are mixing dialogue with lots of BG noise...

2011-12-21T04:58:04Z

...do you like to play the clip downward expanded and have the noise pop through when the dialogue comes up?

do you like to keep it all the same level and not downward expand it?

Rigging Microphones in Cars

2011-12-15T12:07:38Z

what would one make a microphone rig for a car to record dialogues ? Which microphones are preferable for these situations and why ?

Complexities Of Audio Cleanup

2011-11-30T17:43:22Z

What would be the most optimum approach to cleaning Dialogue from a location Recording?

How to record an feature animation dialogue?

2011-11-29T10:14:59Z

Hi guys,

I've got an upcoming feature animation project, my part exactly is to record dialogue. Since I've never got any experience on animation, I did some research especially on the mic use and positioning, nothing were found but some pics and small clips...such like, Happy Feet 2, Happy Feet 1 (these are from Happy Feet 1 and 2, but totally different use of mics...)

So, I was wondering, what are the tricks to record an feature animation dialogue? Does it like doing ADR? or Voice Over? or...somewhere in between?

Any comments are very much appreciated!!

Best, Eric

How do you combine boom mic track with lav mic track for best dialog?

2011-11-21T08:23:59Z

I don't where I heard this, but it seems that big guys tend to get best dialog result out of combining boom track and lav together, so I'm just wondering HOW?

for instance, do you cut the boom's low and add it with lav's low? and how could you avoid the phase problem?

Approaching dialogue recovery with clipped audio, what to do first? (DOCUMENTARY)

2011-11-20T14:06:52Z

hi everyone,

i am currently preparing the audio post process for a (low budget) documentary. the doc isn't finished and still needs a lot of work, but i was eager to see and hear some footage. the director and had a screening (on her laptop(speakers)) and talked about the sound and her ideas, so far so good... well i also asked for the omf and am now listening through the material in my studio.

my first conclusion is that it's pretty bad soundwise. the director filmed everything herself, but is not at all audio savy out of the 18 minutes, at least 6 minutes of the audio is distorted, not very badly, but defenitely noticeable in about 30% of the peaks per region.

the soundtrack consists mainly of an interview with one subject, over the course of three days. everything was recorded using lavelier mic (and transmitter) direct to DVcamera. the other part of the soundtrack is ambience and city sounds. everything is mono and there are no alternate takes available. some DV tapes have ok sound, others are distorted.

to get a feel of how to approach this little monster i decided to do some tests. i've started declipping with izotope rx to get an idea of how bad it is and must say i'm quite pleased with the results so far. but i'm still wondering how and where to start when i get the locked picture and omf.

normally i don't get audiorecordings this bad and restoring bad takes is only a small part of the job. i start with dialogue editing: cleaning up the tracks (ticks, clicks, pops etc) and a few passes have them leveled out evenly. (this is overtly simplified ofcourse) but now i face the challenge of having a lot of clipped audio and some reasonably good audio. cleaning up dialogue within the clipped regions is not an option, everything is to loud and if i bring down the volume i'm still left with a audio image full of clipped peaks, distorting my vision/hearing.

i managed to boil it down into two options:

a. start first with the reasonably good audio takes, cleaning them up and getting a feel for the dialogue flow (and it's levels) and then work your way down to the bad parts

b. start with the bad parts and use ie. izotope to declip the regions first* and then start the cleaning up of all the dialogue in one pass and go from there.

*i mainly ask this because i don't know how much izotope (in my case) changes in the audio besides extrapolating the headroom, is the rest of the audio left 'untouched'? i don't think so, but will it matter with audio in this saturated state?

am i still thinking straight? what would be your approach to this?

any help would be greatly appreciated!

greetings,

arnoud

Volume automation in music between dialogues.

2011-11-10T19:05:20Z

When, between the music track you need to insert speech -- be it voice over or dialogue -- how do you automate the music volume?

How far do you go with levels?
How quick? How's the curve of the automation related to the duration of the speech itself: in and out?

I'm trying to make it sound as clean as possible so it wouldn't be even noticeable to the main audience (the sad part of our job: what gets well done, usually goes unnoticed).

Thank you!

Do you ever double dialogue takes in your mix or design/edit

2011-11-08T01:40:34Z

Just running across an old student film and remembered that the editor doubled several dialogue takes. Does anybody here do this or hear of doing this for some reason or another?

It seems like a beginner method to me.

DIA Editing At Reel Breaks

2011-11-05T19:34:27Z

Hello everyone.

This is the first time that I'm cutting sound on a feature film in a major way, so this the first time I'm really dealing with reel breaks.

Generally when I'm cutting DIA, I leave a one frame fade on either side of a scene transition. But at the head and tail of a reel, that's not possible because no audio can play before the FFOA and after the LFOA.

What do you do for reel breaks? Do you cut really short fade from the beginning of the FFOA frame?

Game Dialogue Recording and Perspective

2011-10-23T22:29:37Z

Hi All,

Question for the game audio folks out there - I'm doing a playthrough of Deus Ex: Human Revolution now and noticing that a lot of the character voices sound very up close/clear and 'voiceovery' in fixed camera-angle conversations where they're not really that tight on the game camera.

I'm sure this doesn't bother the huge majority of players out there, but it jumped out to me and probably would to anyone who's familiar with how production audio tends to sound.

So I'm wondering: when recording game dialogue, do you bother recording for perspective at all, or record it super up-close, hot and present, letting the game itself do all of the rolloffs/etc. in realtime?

If you know this dialogue's going to be for a fixed-perspective shot like a conversation, would you bother burning in some rolled off highs/low EQ in advance to try to 'match' it a little more like in post?

Have you noticed a trend towards one or the other and if so, do you feel it's changing?

Luca

making it sound like a record player

2011-10-24T08:24:05Z

Hey guys, I am currently working on a project where I need to make music sound as if it is playing from a record player, and then separately I need to make some dialogue sound like its coming from a gramophone, has any body got an idea on how to do this?

Mixing Scene Angle

2011-10-23T03:50:37Z

How are ways to mix scene angles?

Say it is a dialogue scene or interview or anything else you can think of that is not graphic and sound FX laden.

What objectives are set during mixing scene angles? What do you have in mind? What objectives of the film are met after scene angles are succesfully mixed?

Getting rid of room sound on a voice recording?

2010-04-11T09:01:56Z

Hi there,

I'm currently doing a dialogue edit for a film, and there's a substantial amount of voice over. Knowing the studio where the recording was to take place well, I asked the recording engineer to be very careful with mic choice, placement and general position of talent within the booth to eliminate the horrible room reflections the studio is known for. Unfortunately... the recordings arrived today, and all I hear is that damn room.

The narrator is male, fairly deep voice, with nice character. But he sounds like he's speaking inside a box. I've done some eq to highlight his tone, but can't seem to get rid of the room altogether.

There's no possibility of re-recording at this time.

Anybody have any success with this problem before? I usually do my own voice over recordings, so I haven't run into this problem a lot.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks,

Favorite Mic for Dialogue

2010-05-10T22:35:24Z

Dear All,

I was wondering what your favorite mic/mics are for recording voice-over or dialogue for whatever type of project you guys are sound designing - video games, films, etc.

Additionally, do you have a specific mic for different applications? Like a mic you use mainly for screechy cartoony voice talents? And then another mic for bassy, intimate narration recordings?

Also, for something like a video-game, do you go to great lengths to get it to sound authentic - i.e. as if it were set-sound? Like, place the mic a bit further than a regular "dead VO"? For example, the sound team for Fantastic Mr. Fox actually went out to a farm and had George Clooney rolling around and running on the farm and recording his lines as opposed to an air-conditioned dead studio. OR do you record it clean and up-close with a U87 and then "dirty it up" afterwards to make it sound like set-sound?

Anyway, just curious as to how you go about recording your dialogue and narration for your projects. Feel free to include your preamp setup and any acoustical peculiarities about your studios as well!

Dialogue Recording Levels

2011-10-01T05:26:02Z

Got into a discussion with a teacher today about the proper level for recording audio, specifically dialogue. She was telling us that keeping it between -6 and -12 is what she does but who the hell speaks with that kind of dynamic range? I was under the impression that it was -12 to -24. Recording at the Dialnorm seems like it could decrease some noisefloor. Anybody have some recording level norms? I've googled it and come across a few answers but I want to see what this forum has to say!

What is your EQ tendency for augmenting vocal presence?

2011-09-24T16:21:14Z

Certainly, quality of record and any hum, hiss, hollowness, or severe background noise will vary this but...I am noticing at my new gig, a tendency to push up the 8-9khtz area in order to augment vocal presence, whereas on my previous team, the boys always favored pushing 2-4k. My new group even mentioned to me that they would prefer I push the frequency at higher point sighting that it felt a bit muddy to them. I guess I am used to the 2-4 k bump. I find the 8-9k can be a bit bright and chirpy. But, the ear changes with what it is accustomed to...So, I have been experimenting with some success with a higher slight bump at 8-9k while bumping a bit at 100htz to give some bottom end.

Do you guys/gals favor a general frequency range for bumping up presence and making the voice seem more forefront?

"13 Ghosts" voice effect

2010-05-15T17:59:16Z

I just want to find out if anyone knows how to create the "ghostly dialogue" in 13 Ghosts. What effects are used and how did they mix it together?

Dialogue editing a scene without dialogue

2011-09-24T07:25:25Z

hello all

the film im working on at the moment is a real 'show don't tell' sorta deal.

my question is: in a scene without dialogue, would you still go through the dialogue editing process? ie getting smooth transitions between clips or filling problems with room tone? even know your just essentially editing room tone. or would you wipe the sound and start from scratch.

i know theres no real rule to this and i guess there will be less problems if i just wipe the audio. but what do you then do about the sound of the room? do i artificially create a blanket of room tone to fill the dead air?

im just worried if i take out all the sound and replace all the sound effects it will just sound dead and there will be nothing to fill between SFX clips.

oh yea there isn't really music either.

if it helps the room is an old blue stone stable turned bunker.

cheers Jamie

Making dialogue more intelligible through M&E

2010-07-22T20:33:11Z

Dear All,

I have a question about trailer mixing that hopefully some of you have an answer to:

When mixing a trailer, or any mixing for that matter, what's your preferred method for popping out dialogue and narration and other important things through the music and effects?

I sometimes have trouble when the music is blaring in a trailer or action scene, and dialogue must be heard through it.

Do you carve out a pocket in the music with an overall EQ on it? Or do you make space by cleverly feathering in the music between lines with volume? Or do you drastically EQ the voice only and leave the music untouched? Do you crush the dialogue with compression?

If you do use only volume, how do you not lose the energy of the music if you have to duck it down under dialogue or narration? Do you only duck some of the mid-range heavy stems and leave possibly the percussion stem up full blast so as to not lose the energy?

Thanks beforehand - Ryan

Strategizing "fill" with three different mics in a high-noise environment

2011-07-27T19:08:26Z

To my frequent saviors, esteemed mentors, and fellow adepts,

Recorded a "free-driving" scene on a freeway with eight actors in a van improvising DX. Setting the myriad factors aside which would have allowed me to get what I wanted during recording (bigger budget for adequate kit list, knowledge of the shoot/story/layout beforehand, etc. ), what actually went down was recording with a Senn ME67, (2) Senn ME2 lavs, and the onboard mic of a Sony XDCAM (oh the horror...oh the shame).

Now that I'm cutting the varying SNR results from the three different types of mics into a PT session, with 2 tracks of DX for each mic, I'm wondering what the best strategy would be to provide the final mix with the least crowding of "noise".

My thoughts:

1- Re-record "fill" with all three mics during my own van session, and then use each separate fill for the corresponding mic type's DX track.

2- Re-record with the mic that has the poorest SNR from production (ME67), fill that mic type's DX track only, and hope that the better SNR from the lav and cam DX tracks punch through unobtrusively.

3- Grab a wakazashi, find a second, and commit ritual suicide for dishonoring the noble class of Noob.

Any thoughts?

Dialogue Editing for Documentary Film

2011-05-21T08:59:45Z

Currently editing dialogue for a short documentary, and I'm wondering, do you guys out there split off PFX in the same way as you do with narrative film work? I'm mainly wondering if you do this because, in addition to the M+E, it's my understanding that we split off PFX because they can pump the expanders/compressors set for the dialogue.

recreating the dialogue sounds of the 60s

2011-06-14T01:39:08Z

i am working on a series that is 100% adr. The series is in the style of a 1960s dubbed film and have been asked to process the dialogue so that it reflects those times. . Any suggestions thoughts or links i would welcome. Have tried the kings microphones but i am more interested in sculpting the tone rather than set and forget.

How to make Dialogue present and full with joystick noise?

2011-06-09T17:25:56Z

I'm working on a short and the opening scene is of 3 teenagers playing Nintendo. The dialogue track is relatively clean (already removed clicks/pops w/Izotope RX) save for the constant clicking of the game controllers. The track was recorded with a Boom in a medium sized room. I'm not really sure how to bring the voices up and out front while not losing too much of the production sound of the game controllers. Also, there is some broadband noise on the track. Any recommendations on which to tackle first?

When you are mixing dialogue, compression settings for stem

2011-06-08T04:43:35Z

When you are mixing dialogue and you have it all mixed, what is your strategy for compressing the rest of it? I understand that multiband compression is commonly used but do you try to set a very high ratio and bring up the human vocal frequency up a few decibels, or keep a low ratio and allow the end chain limiter to take care of peaks. I'm mixing my Dialogue for a project at -24dbfs. I have some peaks in these tracks that get rather high and at some times throughout the mix there are ratios of 10 and make up gains that are sometimes 13 or more. I've used multiband compression on many of the tracks for noise reduction and downwardly expanded most tracks to cut off some noise floor but still retain the full sentences of dialogue. It seems like maybe if you are combining these compression ratios, it would reach the point of limiting but I also don't know if it works like that.