The Sound of Good

[KenL]

Archived from groups: rec.video.desktop,rec.video.production (More info?)

I'm working on a short 30 minute documentary. The pictures are good
and the editing is coming along. What is really important is the quality
of the post-prod sound. I want the narration and the music to be top flight
(like you see on a pro BBC 'Horizon' doc). You know, the timbre and the
presence of the sound have to be rich and balanced and the EQ has to be right.
I'm not a sound pro, so my explanation was probably off the mark, but I
think you get what I'm on about.

What lets nearly all home productions I've seen down, is the sound - or I
should say, lack of sound design. There is a lack of balance between the
narration and the music, and everything sounds tinny, like its coming out
of a cheap transistor radio. I want to avoid this.

What consumer level program will be able to achieve this? I've been told Adobe
Audition is pretty good. Any other better options?

Happy cutting.

PS. I was looking at some tutorials by Douglas Spotted Eagle, who is very
into sound design, but I don't have Vegas

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: rec.video.desktop,rec.video.production (More info?)

Silk purse from a sow's ear?

One thing tokeep in mind is that the sound of your final
edited mix also depends on the quality of your sources.
Were your field tapes recorded with a quality sound signal and miking
technique? Distortion? Noise?

Will this pro-voiceover be miked and recorded well as well.
It's your piece, you'll have to direct the voiceover person to
inflect the way YOU want, although you should let the pro
suggest what he thinks will work.

If you're using premier 6 or higher, you already have the tools you need
right there for good basic audio.

In order to get a good finished result, you need to input quality
source material. Software is great, but it can only do so much.
You might want to look up Jay Rose, a frequent poster here.
His books on this kind of audio and his articles in DV magazine are worth
studying carefully.











"KenL" <cotn@gasentrix.org> wrote in message
news:MTK9LRAH38092.4656134259@anonymous.poster...
> I'm working on a short 30 minute documentary. The pictures are good
> and the editing is coming along. What is really important is the quality
> of the post-prod sound. I want the narration and the music to be top
flight
> (like you see on a pro BBC 'Horizon' doc). You know, the timbre and the
> presence of the sound have to be rich and balanced and the EQ has to be
right.
> I'm not a sound pro, so my explanation was probably off the mark, but I
> think you get what I'm on about.
>
> What lets nearly all home productions I've seen down, is the sound - or I
> should say, lack of sound design. There is a lack of balance between the
> narration and the music, and everything sounds tinny, like its coming out
> of a cheap transistor radio. I want to avoid this.
>
> What consumer level program will be able to achieve this? I've been told
Adobe
> Audition is pretty good. Any other better options?
>
> Happy cutting.
>
> PS. I was looking at some tutorials by Douglas Spotted Eagle, who is very
> into sound design, but I don't have Vegas
>

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: rec.video.desktop,rec.video.production (More info?)

The sound of good comes from good microphone, good preamp, good processing
chain, good room to record it in, and most of all, good voice talent.
There's no getting around the fact that you won't get the same rich sound
from a $250 microphone that you will from a $10,000 Telefunken or Neumann
mic. Sorry, but that's just the way it is, regardless of how much digital
processing you apply to it with Adobe Audition or some other waveform
editor/manipulator.

That said, you shouldn't NEED a $10K Telefunken to get a great sound. My
mic chain (mic and preamp) ran about $3500, and I wouldn't trade it for a
Telefunken. But that's because it matches up nicely with MY voice and MY
room, and that's all I care about. (I'm a voiceover talent.)

And oh, by the way, Adobe Audition is not a "consumer level" product. It's
in use in many hundreds of production rooms around the country (mostly radio
stations and independent studios operated by voiceover talents), including
mine. I keep trying to convince myself to "step up" to Pro Tools, but I
just can't find anything that Pro Tools will do that I can't do in Cool Edit
Pro (now known as Adobe Audition). (Of course the fact that Pro Tools
inexplicably doesn't play nice with Avid, which I use, and which is Pro
Tools/Digidesign's parent company, remains one of the great mysteries of the
modern age.) Although for some who don't have a "pro" sound card (I'm
lucky, I do), Pro Tools' little breakout boxes, such as the M-Box or Digi
002 rack mount (either of which come with Pro Tools LE), are very smart
investments if you want to improve the sound of your audio. Those cheesy
consumer sound cards that come in most OEM computers are simply GARBAGE and
would be better put to use as door stops. Great for video games, connected
to little computer speakers. Terrible for pro audio, with the computer's
sound card playing through studio monitors. You can definitely tell the
difference.

But the software you use to record the audio and manipulate it with is
pretty much irrelevant. One's pretty much as good as another, assuming
there are lots of plug-ins and built-in effects. But the fact remains,
those effects will not "save" audio that was bad going into the computer.

Start with great mic, great room, great preamp, great chain and great
talent... feed it through a great sound card... and voila! -- you'll have
the Sound of Great.

Randy


"KenL" <cotn@gasentrix.org> wrote in message
news:MTK9LRAH38092.4656134259@anonymous.poster...
> I'm working on a short 30 minute documentary. The pictures are good
> and the editing is coming along. What is really important is the quality
> of the post-prod sound. I want the narration and the music to be top
flight
> (like you see on a pro BBC 'Horizon' doc). You know, the timbre and the
> presence of the sound have to be rich and balanced and the EQ has to be
right.
> I'm not a sound pro, so my explanation was probably off the mark, but I
> think you get what I'm on about.
>
> What lets nearly all home productions I've seen down, is the sound - or I
> should say, lack of sound design. There is a lack of balance between the
> narration and the music, and everything sounds tinny, like its coming out
> of a cheap transistor radio. I want to avoid this.
>
> What consumer level program will be able to achieve this? I've been told
Adobe
> Audition is pretty good. Any other better options?
>
> Happy cutting.
>
> PS. I was looking at some tutorials by Douglas Spotted Eagle, who is very
> into sound design, but I don't have Vegas
>

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: rec.video.desktop,rec.video.production (More info?)

A card you would recommend? Can any computer sound card insulate
sufficiently against system noise from the computer?

Randy Brown wrote:

>investments if you want to improve the sound of your audio. Those cheesy
>consumer sound cards that come in most OEM computers are simply GARBAGE and
>would be better put to use as door stops. Great for video games, connected
>to little computer speakers. Terrible for pro audio, with the computer's
>sound card playing through studio monitors. You can definitely tell the
>difference.
>
>

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: rec.video.desktop,rec.video.production (More info?)

In article <ICAfc.66941$467.14028493@news4.srv.hcvlny.cv.net>, " Jack
Perry" <vidpro40remove@optonline.net> wrote:

> ...Software is great, but it can only do so much.
> You might want to look up Jay Rose, a frequent poster here.
> His books on this kind of audio and his articles in DV magazine are worth
> studying carefully.

Then I might as well chime in. Yes: software isn't as important as
understanding the principles of sound. The things that make up a great
track aren't intuitive - when equalization and other processes are done
right (even compression), it takes a very well trained ear to know we've
done anything at all.

Worse, some of the things that may sound intuitively good - tweaking the
knobs on an eq until you like the sound out of your speakers - can make
things much worse in the final product.

The good news: you don't need to be a math or physics genius. Almost all
of the principles and techniques can be understood using nothing more than
grade-school science.

You're already making the first step, asking instead of assuming. The
second step would be to cruise over to DV.com (free, non-spamming
registration) and read some of the audio columns and tutorial features.
Then go to my website, dplay.com, click on 'books', and download some of
the samples from my Audio Post book. (You might even want to plop down $32
for it, after you've read the critical and reader comments. But do the
other steps first... and while you're at the site, go to the Studio
section and click on some of my sample mixes; see if I know what I'm
talking about...)

--
Correct address is spell out the letter j, AT dplaydahtcom
Clio- and Emmy-winning sound design
Learn audio for video at www.dplay.com

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: rec.video.desktop,rec.video.production (More info?)

On Thu, 15 Apr 2004 12:10:29 -0400, KenL wrote
(in message <MTK9LRAH38092.4656134259@anonymous.poster>):

> I'm working on a short 30 minute documentary. The pictures are good
> and the editing is coming along. What is really important is the quality
> of the post-prod sound. I want the narration and the music to be top flight
> (like you see on a pro BBC 'Horizon' doc). You know, the timbre and the
> presence of the sound have to be rich and balanced and the EQ has to be
> right.
> I'm not a sound pro, so my explanation was probably off the mark, but I
> think you get what I'm on about.
>
> What lets nearly all home productions I've seen down, is the sound - or I
> should say, lack of sound design. There is a lack of balance between the
> narration and the music, and everything sounds tinny, like its coming out
> of a cheap transistor radio. I want to avoid this.
>
> What consumer level program will be able to achieve this? I've been told
> Adobe
> Audition is pretty good. Any other better options?
>
> Happy cutting.
>
> PS. I was looking at some tutorials by Douglas Spotted Eagle, who is very
> into sound design, but I don't have Vegas
>

Good sound can be edited by almost anything today. GETTING the good sound is
something different. To get THAT sound you need a talented narrator with a
good voice, a good mic and a good preamp in a good environment.

Thhe same approach to otehr elements of thepiece must alo be observed. Those
guys from BBC didn't just walk in off the street.

Without those elements, you're going to come up short of BBC Standard
quality, and that stuff doesn't come in a box with some software.

Regards,

Ty Ford

 

[KenL]

Archived from groups: rec.video.desktop,rec.video.production (More info?)

Thanks. That's a good start.

1. Garbage in = garbage out
2. Use a good mike
3. Get the sound right at the source
4. Use good talent

What about (if the budget allows) using a pro sound person
& mixer during the shoot. This has to be essential?

The DV.com stuff is excellent.

 

[KenL]

Archived from groups: rec.video.desktop,rec.video.production (More info?)

How generous of all the contributors. How refreshing to have professionals
& experts freely giving advice and knowledge. I work in a culture where
unfortunately, knowledge is not shared generously, but is guarded jealously.
For some reason, people here think that sharing knowledge will threaten their
own positions; If you find a good way to do something, you keep it to yourself.
An inquiry into how someone managed a certain effect or technique, is answered
with deception in order to lead you off the scent.

That reminds me of a Buddhist saying: The more you give the more you receive.