Post Production, How To Become Faster?

Question

So I have been doing audio post production and master for a friend of mine for a few months now. He is starting to have a higher demand for videos and is sending more to work on. They are commentaries about call of duty gameplay. I would like to know if there is software and or VSTs I could use to streamline the process.

Here are some examples of what I have done:

http://bit.ly/yungce0omc4

http://bit.ly/iwantrecon

I compose custom sound fx special events in the videos such as a double kill, and I add those in to the time points that they fit.

I level his selected music for the video in conjunction with his voice and the sound Fx.

I make skits, and music.

The biggest thing I do that takes the most time is fixing the shortcomings in his commentary. What is do for that is hand automate each second of it by use of a volume level. During the process I eliminate all shrill sounds ( he doesn't have a pop filter yet) from "S's" and "T's", lower his voice when he gets too loud, take out any plosives, take out long and loud Sizzles from "s", remove unneeded spit noises, lower Long breaths, rearrange some word when he says the wrong thing 2-4 times while trying to say the right thing, I add FX to his trademark saying at the end of the commentary.

I want to know of some of these procedures could be fixed simple with some types of EQ, I do use a pramstric EQ to help soften the "S's" and I get rid of most of the B plosives by taking out the range that his voice doesn't reach. It takes me about 3hrs to do this and make sure it's loudened, sound fx are playing at right times, levels are correct ( to my standards and his requests), and ultimately make sure he sounds really good.

The commentaries are usually 5-7 minutes with music and sound fx. I custom make the sound fx and sometimes the music too, as well as all audio mastering and mixing.

I am looking into get ozone 5 and isotope RX.

I am using:

FL Studio 10 FL fx and EQ (compressor, reverb 2, parametric EQ 2, multi-band compressor, FL volume (automation), and delay. T-racks (mastering) Waves platinum bundle (hiss removal and other)

He is currently recording with a blue snowball mic, so he sounds ALOT Better than when he first started and I have a bit less work to do than before..

Please let me know your opinions and the processes that you use for these procedures

Thank you for your time!!

Answer 1

• Templates, templates, templates

• Know your hot keys front and back

• To do the above, practice, practice, practice so it becomes muscle memory

• As George said, organize your workflow into jobs, passes, or procedures - scattered workflow is the quickest way to get gummed up - in it's most simply form, do all editorial together as one, and do all mixing/processing together as another pass

• De-essing for the sibilance (try a HF rolloff of 7-10dB starting at about 7k)

• Compressor to help control the dialogue (within reason, you should be mixing into it not relying on it to force your levels) -set your dialogue to an average of about -18dB calibration, then load a compressor with something like 4:1-6:1 ratio, -8 threshold, 7ms Attack and 35ms Release

Hope that helps!

Answer 2

Consider moving your post workflow to a different DAW. I worked with FL Studio from versions 4 through 7, and when it came down to doing solid audio cutting/editing I could never find a good method because the interface targeted MIDI and sample management. I don't know what new features they've added since 7 though.

Have you heard of Reaper? It's free, and very robust. The paradigm is very much like Pro Tools in that the focus is on a Tracks window and a corresponding Mixer window (instead of the channels + patterns paradigm I remember from FL). I find that this is more suitable for post-production. FL Studio can be a solid music production tool in the right hands, but when it comes to editing audio in post I think its interface can slow you down.

http://www.reaper.fm/

Also, get Isotope RX2 because it really is as amazing as what they say.

Answer 3

You could do this a lot easier if you split it into two jobs. First you should edit the voice recordings in a linear editing software, and when this is done you can add the music and sound effects by using a multichannel DAW.

For linear editing nothing beats Adobe Audition, with built in effects from iZotope. You can also use VST plugins with this. I use Waves plugins for de-essing, EQ, compression and filtering. And once the overall audio is filtered and enhanced, you can listen to it and edit out any shortcomings.

For step 2, I would recommend Ableton Live. I've been using it for 5 years, and it never let me down. It also plays video, so you can sync the music and sfx in real time. It saves a lot of time and has a host of built in effects such as compressors, reverb, eq, delay etc.

This is how I usually approach this type of task. With Audition you can assign favorite effects to individual keys, so instead of navigating all the way to the compressor and setting all the parameters you can simply highlight a segment and press the specific key. This has streamlined my work greatly, and I don't want to kill myself each time I have to edit a 4 hour voice recording :)

Hope this helps, G.

Answer 4

I highly recommend Isotope RX2. They even uploaded a video on correcting mouth noise and plosives yesterday!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qwdECSt3qX4&feature=g-like&context=G257a1bcALT2uPFgAAAA