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Room Tone question from a unsure newbie


JeffWWaldrop

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I am relatively new to recording dialog voice sound for video with a DSLR.  I am using a Zoom F8n and a Zoom F6 to capture sound independently to an SD and also patch it in to the camera.  I have read the importance of room tone for use to repair splices in the audio (?).  I am using Audition for editing of the WAV files and I am using IMovie on the Mac to edit video and rendering.

 

Where can I find some examples of how room tone is used in editing sound preferably with Audition since that is what I am using for a DAW?   Any recommendations on a good YouTube video explanation on it?

 

 

Just a newbie,

 

Jeff

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I don't know what YouTube video to recommend, but here are two books worth digging into:

 

Producing Great Sound for Film and Video 
by Jay Rose, CAS 

http://www.greatsound.info

pgs4eSm.jpg

 

 

Dialogue Editing for Motion Pictures

A Guide to the Invisible Art, 2nd Edition

By John Purcell

https://www.routledge.com/Dialogue-Editing-for-Motion-Pictures-A-Guide-to-the-Invisible-Art/Purcell/p/book/9780415828178

purcell.png

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13 hours ago, JeffWWaldrop said:

I am using Audition for editing of the WAV files and I am using IMovie on the Mac to edit video and rendering.


Maybe consider a proper DAW rather than Audition?

(ditto a different NLE than iMove....)

 

Reaper and Pro Tools are two DAWs to consider instead. 

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...maybe a mandatory plug for Nuendo as well...?

--

 

Anyway, OP, the biggest issue is that roomtone edits (or any really clean dialog or music editing) seldom falls on frame lines. 1/24th of a second is long enough to totally miss some common phonemes such as /d/ or /t/, which can be as short as 1/100 second. Ditto, you can miss a 16th note in music at a moderate 120 bpm tempo. 

 

Audio programs, from the incredibly powerful ProTools and Nuendo to the simplest free open source Audacity, let you edit with much more precision. There's a lot more about this in my book (which Jim was kind enough to mention) and the tutorials on my website.

 

 

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22 hours ago, Jim Feeley said:

I don't know what YouTube video to recommend, but here are two books worth digging into:

 

Producing Great Sound for Film and Video 
by Jay Rose, CAS 

http://www.greatsound.info

pgs4eSm.jpg

 

 

 

 

I am reading through Jay Rose's book right now- it should be a must-read for anyone on set, especially if you're touching audio equipment

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  • 3 weeks later...
On 11/21/2019 at 4:05 PM, JeffWWaldrop said:

I am relatively new to recording dialog voice sound for video 

<snip)

 

You want to get Jay’s book if you’re a relative novice.  I did.  It is very comprehensive and beautifully written and organized.  You won’t know what you don’t know until you read his book.  If you have questions about room tone, you’re likely going to have questions about other things too.  Rather than getting your information piecemeal, get this book.  The other book suggested seems a bit advanced and perhaps overly-narrow in scope for what you want and need right now.

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On 11/23/2019 at 5:34 PM, TVPostSound said:

No offense to Jay (Im sorry, I haven't read your book)

Jim Purcell's book has a chapter dedicated to room tone...

 

No offense taken. Jim's book is the bible of dialog editing for narrative feature film, and it's well written besides. He devotes a whole book to to the subject. My book is bigger... but it has only one chapter on dialog editing, because it covers the entire soundtrack process from prepro to mix, for all kinds of films and budgets.

 

I'm also sorry you haven't read my book. Jim and I take completely different approaches to figuring out exactly where to make the cut in a spoken line. Both are valid, both are fast and reliable in the heat of editing, and a good editor learns to use both...

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On 11/22/2019 at 4:43 AM, IronFilm said:


Maybe consider a proper DAW rather than Audition?

(ditto a different NLE than iMove....)

 

Reaper and Pro Tools are two DAWs to consider instead. 

Actually Audition is pretty capable and if used in tandem with Premiere its a decent workflow.

On 11/22/2019 at 1:07 PM, Rick Reineke said:

I doubt iMovie can edit audio to the sub-frame level. FCP sucks as well for audio work in general.

Most DAWs allow editing audio down to the sample level. Which may or may not be needed for inserting RT depending.

He mentioned he's using Audition to edit the audio.

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