7
Very kind of you Brendan to link to the blog post, glad people are finding it useful!
As Melissa has touched upon (and that book is a very good introduction to dialogue that I equally recommend), and as briefly mentioned in the blog post, editorial is the foundation here. No amount of Broadband noise suppression, even a Cedar DNS, can fix a dialogue track ...
4
I actually often design sounds in 5 channels, in rare cases 5.1, but you must be absolutely positively certain why when doing it. Most sounds I actually do in mono, and others in stereo, always adapted to what works best for the project, both in style and, for exaple if there are to be any reverb or general processing.
How I do it depends on the sound. Say ...
4
I just took a very quick listen. It sounds to me like you're trying to change the character of the song+sounds in mixing - making it much more mellow or darker sounding.
If that's the case, you probably get better results by changing the sounds you use.
If that's not the case, do less:
Less compression
Less EQing
Less reverb
Get the balance right ...
4
This is a very big topic, I will start by redirecting you to a very useful site/article: Mastering for Vinyl from Recording magazine.
Also I would like to state that I'm not a mastering engineer, I'm a mixing engineer only working with analog gear, so I'll try to tell you what we keep in mind when going for vinyl. The article is far more detailed and ...
3
Pan pots were not generally implemented on 60s' consoles – panning a signal would require sacrificing a precious entire extra channel, which explains rather well why you seldom find anything but center / hard-left / hard-right on such old recordings: if there is an actual "continuous" stereo image, it'll usually be a proper stereo-mic setup.
However, very ...
3
Rock on, Karol!
I'm always interested in the aesthetic side; the decision making process as it relates to the story. Why folks make the choices they do, how they perceive the implications of those choices in relation to the overall narrative, and whether or not it had the intended effect.
3
collaboration always makes for better stories than technique IMO.
So stories about working with directors, stories about working with actors, stories about working with the final mix team, etc.
I also like case studies and how not to do it stories. :)
3
I agree with Christian too. As a short and direct answer, I may work in a stero or 5.1 environment, but I always cut my elements as mono or stereo and give them a virtual premix (e.g. leveling, panning). Let the stage care of the rest.
If I have to crash down my edits for certain technical reasons, I'll crash them down strategically for what's intended to ...
3
Use a low pass filter or EQ to remove high frequencies.
2
John Purcell, on his book Dialoge Editing, advises strongly to have a proper edit regarding the room tone before you run to the noise reduction. Having longer fades on room tones to trick our ears between aggressive transitions; If using plug ins like x_noise or alike, and turn to destructive, maybe try some eq first, know the noise offending your audio so ...
2
Stavrosound linked to a great post he did on the Waves C4 being used for cleaning dialogue. Here
2
The most common standards are -20 and -18, there are some people who use -22 though. It's an issue of how much head room you want while you're mixing. You can mix to whatever reference you like, just know that it will affect your mix decisions. For example, if you mix to a -22 reference your mix will likely be quieter than if you mixed it at a -18 reference.
...
2
Every film I have ever been a part of has one shared element: WORKFLOW. Each sound crew approaches it differently, and does each picture department and each mixing stage. How they work together is critical and affects the entire process, from the first day of turnover to the final day of M&E.
There have been published discussions on this topic but I don'...
2
I prefer the unmixed version at the moment, as it seems to have more space and atmosphere compared to the rather stifled and somehow 'unbalanced' mix.
I've found myself going through this process a lot, where I mix & mix and eventually end up discarding it and trying again. Ultimately, I'm slightly embarrassed to say, I found simply using alternative ...
2
Imagine a professional mix engineer who has just started playing guitar asking you "How can I play guitar as well as Tom Morello or Pat Metheny?" You would probably see at least 5 - 10 years of practice in their future to be able to play guitar at a professional level, if not much more (20 years?).
You are in the reverse position. Creating a professional ...
2
The best way to learn what the pros do is listen carefully to all of your favorite albums. Not only does that tell you what the pros do, it tells you what you like to hear the pros do. There's pretty much no one right answer to any of these kinds of decisions. If you listen to enough music you'll hear all different kinds of production styles. So the ...
2
This is actually a classic mistake most people do. And it really affects the outcome.
Most of the times it's the plugin , the harmonic content added by the plugin OR the beef in that particular Hz area just isnt the same. I found out that a lot of digital software messes this up.
This could happen due to some setting some LFO/cutoff or just by the ...
1
Usually pros have a concept by album, each album corresponds to one "story" or one creative "period" of an artist/band.
This is not only about music here but also about image and professional aim,
(do you want to be a studio musician, rock star, soloist ?...)
This also strongly depends on your music style, band image and audience needs (if you already have ...
1
Nothing beats recording live from a great amp. However, even a guitar player with 20 years under his or her belt might need to use laptop setup with a DAW to put down ideas. Producers and engineers need to know how to get good tones even if they don't play instruments (of course, playing instruments helps). You didn't mention what style of guitar music (...
1
The age-old dilemma - do I trust my system?
Do I have to compensate for it, physically or by guesswork?
The age-old answer has always been to listen to what other people's tracks sound like on all systems available to you - in & out of your usual genre, then mix to match the best of those.
If you are over- or under-emphasising low frequencies, you ...
1
Some interesting things have been said so I won't repeat, but one important miss i think:
Although it is a bit too loud in the raw track, the ride cymbal is way way way too low in your mix, and you lost all the groove. I really think that is the biggest error. This ride really is IMHO the key of this groove, and it has to be "LOUD", I mean you sure could go ...
1
If I were to comment, you may be using a pinch too much compression but the mix sounds solid overall! I think you're also forgetting about what mastering will do for a solid mix.
I used to master tracks and once I got lucky enough to master a track for a Grammy winning audio engineer Ben Arrindell. To my (amateur) surprise, the mix wasn't "radio ready" ...
1
You can "position" sounds in the stereo field. When you listen to music and a particular instrument seems to be left, it may be the result of microphone positioning, or pan adjustment on the mixing console (whether real or virtual).
Setting an instrument fully left or right creates an awkward feeling, because in real life even when you listen to an ...
1
Deliver the best sound you can get!!
But also inform that there is different audio material. I would prepare the Lav for the Editor and bounce out the shotgun parts in stems that start at the begin of the timecode of the project. So then he can use them if he needs more atmo.
Also something that makes me happy is when i get a full prepaired atmo track for ...
1
The fundamentals have been covered. How about, every now and again, a deep technical dissection of a single sound effect? Also some of the finer storytelling aspects wouldn't go wrong at all (Ondaatje's "The Conversations" did this very well). Maybe an occasional horror story from the dub stage, if anyone dares? Fewer stories about how director X works with ...
1
When I asked someone this question years ago, the person responded and said "You can mix on coffeecans if you know how they translate to other speakers."
With that said, you may find that good monitors or at least unbiased monitors will get you to a mix that will translate quicker than the pair of consumer headphones that you may have to keep tweaking ...
1
In a normal theatrical environment/stage it should be either -18dBFS = 85dBSPL or -20dBFS = 85dBSPL (I believe -20 is the commonly-accepted standard now). For TV its the same but to 79dBSPL. I'm curious where the 32 comes from. That's a very oddball number unless There's something I'm missing entirely.
1
Regarding Jake's level question: it is my understanding that the film sound SPL spec of 85dB applies to large mixing stages and large theaters. It is generally understood that in smaller rooms (like small post rooms), lower monitor levels are needed--for example, the TV standard for small rooms (ATSC recommendation) is 76 dB (C weighted-slow meter response ...
1
Is the shot with low-level dialogue the only unusually low recording? Are there alternate takes at a more acceptable level? Using either one of those, or audio from another shot entirely like Michael Gilbert said, you can likely edit together a line that sounds convincingly enough like the original's tone and performance. Make sure that you've edited your ...
Only top voted, non community-wiki answers of a minimum length are eligible
