Joe Riggs Posted April 9, 2015 Report Share Posted April 9, 2015 Hello, I was wondering what is the traditional workflow for editing audio (cleanup, amplify, etc..), the process used as well as the best order: Would you Normalize first, then noise reduction, then EQ, then amplify? I just don't know what the best procedure is. Also if you have a track where the dialogue audio levels vary wildly, some quiet, some loud, what is the best process or processes to use that will result in a consistent audio level? Thansk Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Angelo Waldron Posted April 9, 2015 Report Share Posted April 9, 2015 Normalize? WTF http://duc.avid.com/ Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mattiasnyc Posted April 9, 2015 Report Share Posted April 9, 2015 uh... pretty 'big' question you're asking really. If you actually are talking about pure dialog editing i really recommend Purcell's book on it. It's very good. Start there. There is no short answer. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John Blankenship Posted April 9, 2015 Report Share Posted April 9, 2015 Next question, "How do you build an automobile? What are the workflow steps and what processes are required in order to meet all safety standards? What is the remedy if the electrical system doesn't meet specs?" Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jim Feeley Posted April 9, 2015 Report Share Posted April 9, 2015 Three good links (in addition to Angelo's): Make Everything OK button http://make-everything-ok.com Audio Postproduction for Film and Video http://jayrose.com/book/app2e/index.html Dialog Editing for Motion Pictures http://www.amazon.com/Dialogue-Editing-Motion-Pictures-Invisible/dp/0415828171 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
VASI Posted April 9, 2015 Report Share Posted April 9, 2015 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rick Reineke Posted April 9, 2015 Report Share Posted April 9, 2015 This question was asked earlier today on both the DVi and DVx (audio) forums where I posted a reply. One of which wanted to use...(choke).. FCP. No one-size-fits-all answer in any case. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Philip Perkins Posted April 9, 2015 Report Share Posted April 9, 2015 No normalize in any of my workflows. Do you mean gain change? Yes, that first. As to the order of what follows, that's a personal choice. philp Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jay Rose Posted April 10, 2015 Report Share Posted April 10, 2015 Normalize is scary on dialog. As the actors' projection changes, normalizing the files will bounce the backgrounds up and down. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Marc Wielage Posted April 10, 2015 Report Share Posted April 10, 2015 I would also recommend using a specific audio editing/mixing application like Pro Tools to do what the o.p. is talking about. Don't try to do this in a video editing program. They're just not fully-featured enough to really tweak dialogue and get the most out of it. Plug-ins like iZotope RX4 can really help a lot, too, at least with problematic dialogue. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MT Groove Posted April 10, 2015 Report Share Posted April 10, 2015 Normalize??? Probably one of the most useless function in today's workflow. Sammy Huen Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jay Rose Posted April 11, 2015 Report Share Posted April 11, 2015 I would also recommend using a specific audio editing/mixing application like Pro Tools to do what the o.p. is talking about. Don't try to do this in a video editing program. They're just not fully-featured enough to really tweak dialogue and get the most out of it. +1 And besides, they're limited to frames. In most programs, you have to edit on frame lines. Dialog edits can be much smaller than 1/24 second... some consonants are shorter than 10 ms! The few programs will let you nudge an in-point precisely... then nudge the out-point to match, so the clip is still an integral number of frames. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
David Silberberg Posted April 17, 2015 Report Share Posted April 17, 2015 I'm going to try to answer the OP's question, but from the point of view of a film-maker and sound recordist who has worked on sound post for documentary films: First the editor cuts the piece and along the way she will make volume changes. These changes may be saved if they can exported and carried over to ProTools. Or they may get tossed. When the picture is locked (usually an optimistic assessment ) , we do a spotting session and go through the film, making notes about all aspects of the sound track, Dialogue , Music, EFX, and Ambiances. The spotting session yields a list of fixes (which I put on an Excell spreadsheet) : clunky edits that need smoothing, music that needs replacing, words that for whatever reason are unclear and can be fixed, ambiances and fx that need to be added, de-noising dialogue that can benefit from de-noising ( minimally!) , adding gain to sounds that were recorded too low in the field, and a ton of other stuff , but no EQ. Then after working through that list , there's another spotting session and the list is updated, and this cycle continues until eventually we end up with D, M, E, and A tracks that are un-mixed and not EQ'd that go to the final re-recording mix sessions. The final mix is where D tracks get EQ'd and that happens in a quality mixing studio that is set up like a little theater with really good audio monitors that are set-up properly. And the film is gone through scene by scene, EQing and mixing the separate elements and building the sound track. It's a very cool time because that's like the birth of the film , where it really starts to come to life. You're seeing it and hearing it in new ways. And you're collaborating with the re-recording mixer who can really bring a lot of skill and taste and creative experience to the project. The re-recording mixer can fix things and solve problems that you may never have been able to do on your own (like the wildly varying audio levels that the OP mentioned.) But it's also expensive to do a mix in a quality studio setting. If you're doing the mix in your home studio, you're going to miss out on that collaboration, but you'll have more time to work things out on your own, and you can follow basically the same process. But if your home work station has low quality monitors , or monitors that are "flattering" but not flat then your EQ adjustments will be skewed. Or even if you've got good monitors at home, there's still many variables that can fool your ears. You need to do a reality check. So when you get close to finishing, take your mix project to a good studio and pay for a playback session with a mixer sitting in on the listen. This is a great way to educate yourself. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jpustin Posted May 4, 2015 Report Share Posted May 4, 2015 everyone here has some great info and links. All I want to say is please don't normalise!!!!! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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