Gigantic Foley/EFX sessions.

Question

Hi team,

A question for all you foley/location/EFX recordists out there...

I recently spent an hour or two with a few balloons in my quiet room. Yes, microphones were involved... I recorded the entire time with an H4N and a large diaphragm condenser, blowing them up, squeaking, spinning wooden dowels around inside, &tc. This means that I have a stereo file from the onboard mics and a mono for the condenser, both of which are nigh on two hours long.

I didn't have a plan since I was just fooling around with a borrowed recorder to see what kind of sounds I could get. However, I've just spent the last half hour editing and now that I've looked up, I see that I've only cut 3 minutes worth of clean sounds so far and still have more than an hour and a half worth of raw stuff to go through. And it's not as if I can just eyeball it and skip to bits that look like they might be good; too many easy to miss nuances that sit way down with tiny waveforms.

My question is, how do I go organize my recordings so that I don't have to spend all of the rest of my life editing balloon squeaks?

When you're doing a foley or EFX session, do you have a particular order in which you do things? i.e./ Specific movements first (breaths, then squeaks, then spins), then move onto the silly/fun part trying to make it make weird noises?

Or does it take just as much time either way, so just have at 'er and worry about it later?

It makes sense to me to plan stuff out (at least have a general idea of what I want), but I worry that sticking too closely to a rule like that might miss opportunities to get great sounds. The problem with that is that I'm totally ADD and get sonically sidetracked/fixated really easily. I'm planning to do a day in the forest soon, and I know I'll end up with at least twice the two hours I did with balloons.

Also, on the editing side, how do you know when to stop? which stuff is actually likely useable, and what's not?

Answer 1

Follow the law of diminishing returns:

1. Archive the unedited recordings into your library, so nothing is lost

2. Split the recording into (compiled) sections based on the type of sound, and export it as seperate files.. Do not presuppose the future use for it i.e. don't do too much editing or mastering or whatever.... its source material for projects that dont exist yet.... In a near real time pass (with no editing) its not too hard to split out types of sounds to tracks below eg

   • track 1&2 = source material
   • track 3&4 = balloon pops
   • track 5&6 = balloon rubbing
   • track 7&8 = balloon air release
   • track 9&10 = balloon air inflate etc

FWIW two hours of source material is really not a huge amount (my Samoa trip generated 27+ hours of material) But you could easily spend an entire day on 30 seconds worth. Wait for a context/project to warrant getting that detailed with it.

Diminishing returns - don't invest time unless you have a specific planned use for it...

Answer 2

I generally follow @Tim's Advice on Diminishing Returns, however... for smaller sessions I have a workflow set up that picks up where his advice about separating things onto separate tracks leaves off.

Depending on your speed, it's entirely possible to have 2 hours worth of recordings neatly edited, named and archived in about 1-4 hours depending how much variation is in the session.

I posted about it somewhere on here once before. It was in relation to batch processing V/O lines, but it applies here as well. It's all mostly understanding how to make Pro Tools do your work for you.

It breaks down into steps like this:

1. Back up all recordings to a master folder labeled "Unedited" or "Original". Then create an editing session. Import/Copy all your files into your session.

2. CLEAN: Run Noise Reduction on the whole file (if it's all in the same location/has the same noise floor) if you want to get rid of Ambience/Roomtone. This step is optional depending on several factors.

3. ORGANIZE: Separate Sounds onto separate tracks according to noise type. Name your tracks after whatever the sound is. ie: Balloon_Inflate/Balloon_Deflate/Balloon_Squeak/Balloon_Pop (use singular terms if these are being chopped into singular sounds).

4. EDIT: Run Strip Silence to have it do most of your topping and tailing for you.

5. FADE: Batch Fade with the smallest fade possible.

6. CREATE NEW FILE/RENAME: Tab + Shift Tab (with Tab to transient Turned Off) to jump from region to region and Consolidate the regions one by one. Shift+Opt/Alt+3) This will then create a new file (and not just a child region) which is named after the track and it will add a number to it every time you consolidate. Delete empty and unwanted regions as you come across them. Also perform additional top and tailing if you need more done. Strip silence won't get all of them perfect. Be sure to leave small handles/buffer space and be careful with sounds that have a long tail. You don't want to accidentally chop these off. So preview questionable sounds before you commit to a consolidation.

7. CLEAN UP: Go track by track and select everything on the track and look in your look in your regions bin to make sure no child files are selected. If there are, select them one by one and delete them as you do not want these ending up in your master collection. Then with only the regions you want remaining make sure nothing is selected and hit Shift+CMD(mac)/Ctrl(pc)+U will select unused regions. Delete these from your session.

8. EXPORT: Select all remaining Regions and hit: Shift+CMD(mac)/Ctrl(PC)+K and this will export regions as files. Create a new Folder next to the "unedited" one you created earlier. Name this one "Edited". This will place copies of all your new neatly cleaned, edited with baked fades, renamed and numbered files into a neat and tidy folder.

In addition, sometimes if there are hundreds of similar variations I might select a handful of the prime examples and delete the rest if they are that similar. Or, I might take a batch of 10/20 sounds and make one file out of those as opposed to hundreds if they are not too drastically different and are similar but not exact.

If you need further explanation, just ask.

Answer 3

The Sound Effects Bible actually hits on this... first, verbally slate EVERYTHING, so you know what you're looking for; second, do something loud to create a visible peak so you can see the separation on the waveform; third, always allow two seconds before and after the effect so you get all the nuances.

Answer 4

This is exactly why I got a Pro Tools controller (moveable computer stand with keyboard/mouse on a KVM switcher extension) for inside the foley room.

This way I can stop and start as I wish or put markers in as I go.

I hear tell that there is an app which can wirelessly control Pro Tools, but I haven't looked into it.

Marking and keeping track of recording sessions of this type is extremely important.

I went through a couple sessions like the one you described wherein I had no markers or notes on what was where and I figured out the best method for myself would be to have the computer next to me as I recorded so I could stop and start and even delete takes that were not needed. I also have had to work alone without a team pretty much my whole career and I do know that on larger foley stages there is a foley mixer who is in the control room while the foley artist is recording the actions and the mixer is compiling and noting all of the material.

This is in effect, stopping you from having to do your work twice, saving you time (read: money) in the recording and editing of a film.

Unfortunately this method won't work with recording on an H4n handheld recorder, but you could possibly take notes on where the timer is on each audio file you record and do it that way.

Clapping and verbal slates are also very useful, as Dave described.

(Edit: I also really don't hope you're serious about the ADD thing...)