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dialogue editing and mixing. The question.


alidav

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My question is about using plugins, I  do mostly sound on a film set, and rarely I do some post-work for small projects, this helped me a lot to improve my job during the shootings. I've realized how easy it could be making a mess when cleaning up dialogues and mixing (mostly doing it at the same time).  I have mixed in the past mostly music and carried with me that background. High levels, transients massive, using compressors, never issues about noises and need to clean  rumbles, clothes rustle because everything was recorded in perfect situations. But when I approached audio film post everything was more complicated. I used plug ins on the single tracks and on the stems and had at the end awful sound and background noises and room tone coming out that could not hear before. this is only one example. 

so my question is what is a good approach when mixing and using any audio tool like denoiser or compressor and reverbs. Single tracks, on the bus where I 've routed into.  Any advice and link is appreciated

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Besides getting the Purcell book, I strongly recommend building project templates beforehand and then tweaking them to suit each specific project.  There are a lot of ways to skin this cat, you kind of have to try a few things to see what suits your system, the sort of work you do and your brain.   With plugins it is very easy to over-push the processing and essentially improve the track into a ruin.  It is extremely important to switch out all the processing and hear how what you've done compares to the original, often.  A small piece of advice: instead of trying to solve a problem with a lot of one tool, use a little of several.  I also recommend reading the Gearslutz Post Production forum, and asking questions there.

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Alidav, you have identified perfectly the problems and differences so you know (from either end) what the issues are.

 

I would personally (assuming time being not an extreme issue where it might be in television) ask that everything is recorded clean so that it can be corrected and perfected in post. Recording a separate processed track for the editor is another matter.

 

The absolute best solution is to know in advance the supervising sound editor (and hence the dialogue editor if different) and the rerecording mixer, to discuss their preferences, anticipate problems etc all in advance.

 

There will always however be the case that what is the best action for one team is the worst action for another so this is where either relationships or advance communication is generally the best circumstance for tackling a job.

 

Jez

Although I was assuming you meant 'recording-mixing' rather than 'post-mixing' so I hope I have understood the question right?

 

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Purcell's Dialog Editing is an excellent book. He's a very good writer, and covers every aspect of turning the ransom note of edited production audio into something that'll work smoothly and quickly on the dub stage. I recommend it highly, and have a copy in front of me right now.

 

But he's primarily an editor, not a rerecording mixer. While he walks you through just about every possibly editing scenario with lots of pro tips, his book has less than a dozen pages on processing. 

 

I wrote Audio Postproduction to fill that gap. There are sixty pages just on equalization, dynamics control, and noise reduction, plus chapters on time domain (including reverb) and other processing. I cover dialog editing - but nowhere near as deeply as Purcell - plus editing music and sfx, and recording VO and ADR (which are postproduction operations). It also comes with a one-hour audio CD of tutorials, examples, and diagnostics. 

 

Ideally, you should have both books. They've also both been out long enough that there are used copies around. But if you buy a used copy of mine, make sure it has the CD. A lot of its content was cleared only for single-CD-with-book, so I can't send you replacement files.

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  • 2 months later...
On 2/8/2020 at 2:01 PM, Jay Rose said:

Purcell's Dialog Editing is an excellent book. He's a very good writer, and covers every aspect of turning the ransom note of edited production audio into something that'll work smoothly and quickly on the dub stage. I recommend it highly, and have a copy in front of me right now.

 

But he's primarily an editor, not a rerecording mixer. While he walks you through just about every possibly editing scenario with lots of pro tips, his book has less than a dozen pages on processing. 

 

I wrote Audio Postproduction to fill that gap. There are sixty pages just on equalization, dynamics control, and noise reduction, plus chapters on time domain (including reverb) and other processing. I cover dialog editing - but nowhere near as deeply as Purcell - plus editing music and sfx, and recording VO and ADR (which are postproduction operations). It also comes with a one-hour audio CD of tutorials, examples, and diagnostics. 

 

Ideally, you should have both books. They've also both been out long enough that there are used copies around. But if you buy a used copy of mine, make sure it has the CD. A lot of its content was cleared only for single-CD-with-book, so I can't send you replacement files.

 

proud to report i just bought both of these books and very excited to get them. I like many others am busy refining audio skills during this quarantine downtime. home schooling myself while i home school the kids. 

 

-Ken

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All very good advice here!

 

I could maybe add this: keep all the processing real-time as much as possible instead of audiosuite renders. Much easier to change and adapt a setting then to go back to editing in Izotope rx for example.

 

Also, once you chewed and digested your reading, I recommend this podcast:

https://tonebenderspodcast.com/097-gary-bourgeois/

 

My 0.02$

 

Franky

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On 2/8/2020 at 2:01 PM, Jay Rose said:

But if you buy a used copy of mine, make sure it has the CD. A lot of its content was cleared only for single-CD-with-book, so I can't send you replacement files


I got lucky i missed this tip until after i placed the order for a gently  used copy.

 

 

image.jpg

These are my homework assignments

 

 

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  • 1 month later...

John Purcell's book is great. I ordered it thinking it was another book I'd been recommended but wasn't disappointed after reading it.

 

One thing I notice is a lot of well-known books don’t cover stuff like izotope RX and other software solutions that are relatively new(ish) and how to work it into traditional workflows.  It can be hard to know when to apply noise reduction, at what point and by how much to begin with.  It depends on the type of production and source material to large degree.  I think this touches on OP’s original question.

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  • 2 months later...
On 2/8/2020 at 2:01 PM, Jay Rose said:

Purcell's Dialog Editing is an excellent book. He's a very good writer, and covers every aspect of turning the ransom note of edited production audio into something that'll work smoothly and quickly on the dub stage. I recommend it highly, and have a copy in front of me right now.

 

But he's primarily an editor, not a rerecording mixer. While he walks you through just about every possibly editing scenario with lots of pro tips, his book has less than a dozen pages on processing. 

 

I wrote Audio Postproduction to fill that gap. There are sixty pages just on equalization, dynamics control, and noise reduction, plus chapters on time domain (including reverb) and other processing. I cover dialog editing - but nowhere near as deeply as Purcell - plus editing music and sfx, and recording VO and ADR (which are postproduction operations). It also comes with a one-hour audio CD of tutorials, examples, and diagnostics. 

 

Ideally, you should have both books. They've also both been out long enough that there are used copies around. But if you buy a used copy of mine, make sure it has the CD. A lot of its content was cleared only for single-CD-with-book, so I can't send you replacement files.

i came into the post forum to seek out book suggestions and found this great post within 30 seconds! :)

i love your "producing great sound for film and digital video” book and am excited to dig into your postproduction one (which i just ordered along with the purcell book).

any additional books you’d 
recommend as next level reading?

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1 hour ago, mikebarber said:

any additional books you’d recommend as next level reading?

 

Mike, Jay passed away earlier this year. 

 

I know one of Jay's favorite books was The Responsive Chord by Tony Schwartz. It's not technical and it's not long. And not everyone agrees with its arguments (and it's often, I think, miscategorized). Jay recommended it to me long long ago. I'm glad he did.  

www.tonyschwartz.org/books/responsive-chord/

 

Others here will be able to recommend other good books that will help you develop your ear and craft. 

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5 hours ago, Jim Feeley said:

 

Mike, Jay passed away earlier this year. 

 

I know one of Jay's favorite books was The Responsive Chord by Tony Schwartz. It's not technical and it's not long. And not everyone agrees with its arguments (and it's often, I think, miscategorized). Jay recommended it to me long long ago. I'm glad he did.  

www.tonyschwartz.org/books/responsive-chord/

 

Others here will be able to recommend other good books that will help you develop your ear and craft. 

 

oh, damn. i’m sad to hear.

 

thanks for the recommendation! i’m trying to dive right in to the theory and application for dialogue editing but also sound design (including foley). i have a strong background in music, but it’s these other areas that i’m trying to strengthen. 

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