Here's a set of tips that I would like to share. The EQ part is based on infromation from a Jay Rose article, so I can't take credit for it. But I've used the technique, and have found it to be successful.
We face the problem that we want our films to have music, foley, effects and dialog, and we need the dialog to be clear, natural and understandable. We also want the music and effects to sound powerful, but not bury the on-screen voices. What to do?
Here's the deal:
Under 150 Hz
-------------
In this range you can pull down the dialog. It will help reduce plosives, handling noise and echo in large rooms. If the voices get too thin, lower the cutoff frequency.
For music, you can cut things like bass drums a bit at the lowest frequencies (say under 60Hz) to ensure that you have no sub-sonics, and to give you more headroom.
Low cuts are nice for safety, but if you're too aggressive, things get thin. Find the right balance.
150Hz - 300Hz
--------------
This is where the fundamentals of voice and many important instruments exist. I like to give the voices a slight boost and the music/effects/foley a slight cut here. If your voices are boomy, back it off. If thin, boost away.
One trick is to send your music to two sub-busses. When you're underscoring dialog, use the cut version. When standing alone, use the flat version.
300Hz - 600Hz
--------------
This region is less critical for voice. You can boost your music/etc here and get away with it. Cut the voices here to make room.
600Hz - 1200Hz
---------------
This region is critical for consonants. Boost the voices and cut the music. You lose some fast attacks on your music, but it's more important to understand the talent.
1200Hz - 2400Hz
----------------
This area isn't critical for voice. Cut the dialog, boost the music a bit.
2400Hz - 4800Hz
----------------
This region is important for distiguishing voices and instruments. Boost the voices and cut the music - especially if there are multiple voices. The downside is that your oboe will start to sound like a clarinet. You can push this range back up for the music when it stands alone.
4800Hz - 9600Hz
----------------
This is the *sizzle* region. I boost both the music and voice heavily here.
9600Hz and up
--------------
Don't worry about higher frequencies too much. It's mostly noise. If your tracks have HF noise, feel free to cut with a heavy hand.
The overall sound
-----------------
I mixed with this technique last weekend for the 48-hour film project. I didn't have time to think about it, so I just threw the above EQ rules at everything, modifying each band by +/-2dB to +/-4dB, being less agressive on the lows and more aggressive on the highs. You can actually be much more aggressive with the cuts and get away with it.
The voices sounded *great*. We used a long shotgun (our best mic) indoors, and the ambience was very natural. It didn't sound boomy, in a cave or anything like that. In fact, it sounded very intimate. It gave the feeling of being very close to the actors in a quiet invironment. You could hear lips, tongue and breath. There was just enough room effect to sound in-place.
The music sounded a bit hollow. This was great for my forelorn score, but wouldn't work in all cases. If this happens, just back off the EQ adjustments to taste. During the swells when there was no dialog, I wish I had gone with a more neutral EQ to give more power, but it wasn't in the time budget.
The bottom line is that I could run music peaks simultaneous with dialog and never lose an ounce of intelligibility.
The other "rules" I used were:
1) Mix nominal dialog so it peaks around -12 dB. Find the loudest normal speech, and set your fader for the -12dB peak goal (ignoring plosives and the odd loud sound).
2) When the dialog is too loud, use an envelope to cut only the offending syllables. This keeps your noise floor consistent between sounds.
3) Copy the dialog track and apply heavy noise reduction. Only mix this in when the dialog is too faint. Mixing this in won't affect the noise floor, and you've still got the unprocessed stuff from the main track in there, so the NR artifacts will remain somewhat hidden. You can be sloppy with the envelope, as there should be little noise between words. For dead syllables, mix up both tracks on just that syllable. (Fortunately, the EQ tricks help avoid dead syllables.)
4) Mix the music as needed. Rather than use compression, mix down the offending instrument or envelope down just the loud hits.
5) When done, especially if you are the composer, mix the overall music down another 2 to 3 dB. No one loves your score as much as you do.
6) Review the whole thing. Envelope the music back up in the dynamic swells, if needed. Step 5 gave us more headroom - let's use it.
7) Check your peaks. The maximum should be about 1.5dB below full scale, just to be safe. You can peak higher on an explosions or gun shots (which are just a loud noises), but not as high on a loud voice or music, which have understandable information.
There are countless other tricks as well - especially if you have a multiband compressor on hand. But we're not mixing the world's loudest CD here. We're mixing for a film. We've got dynamic range. Use it.
In any case, if you're not a professional audio mixer, just go with the above rules, and your DVD print will have understandable dialog, safe levels, room for dynamics and a consistent level of background noise. The result should sound professional.
Enjoy!
__________________
Jon Fairhurst
http://PoorlyProjectedPictures.com
--Posted with permission from Mr. Fairhurst.
We face the problem that we want our films to have music, foley, effects and dialog, and we need the dialog to be clear, natural and understandable. We also want the music and effects to sound powerful, but not bury the on-screen voices. What to do?
Here's the deal:
Under 150 Hz
-------------
In this range you can pull down the dialog. It will help reduce plosives, handling noise and echo in large rooms. If the voices get too thin, lower the cutoff frequency.
For music, you can cut things like bass drums a bit at the lowest frequencies (say under 60Hz) to ensure that you have no sub-sonics, and to give you more headroom.
Low cuts are nice for safety, but if you're too aggressive, things get thin. Find the right balance.
150Hz - 300Hz
--------------
This is where the fundamentals of voice and many important instruments exist. I like to give the voices a slight boost and the music/effects/foley a slight cut here. If your voices are boomy, back it off. If thin, boost away.
One trick is to send your music to two sub-busses. When you're underscoring dialog, use the cut version. When standing alone, use the flat version.
300Hz - 600Hz
--------------
This region is less critical for voice. You can boost your music/etc here and get away with it. Cut the voices here to make room.
600Hz - 1200Hz
---------------
This region is critical for consonants. Boost the voices and cut the music. You lose some fast attacks on your music, but it's more important to understand the talent.
1200Hz - 2400Hz
----------------
This area isn't critical for voice. Cut the dialog, boost the music a bit.
2400Hz - 4800Hz
----------------
This region is important for distiguishing voices and instruments. Boost the voices and cut the music - especially if there are multiple voices. The downside is that your oboe will start to sound like a clarinet. You can push this range back up for the music when it stands alone.
4800Hz - 9600Hz
----------------
This is the *sizzle* region. I boost both the music and voice heavily here.
9600Hz and up
--------------
Don't worry about higher frequencies too much. It's mostly noise. If your tracks have HF noise, feel free to cut with a heavy hand.
The overall sound
-----------------
I mixed with this technique last weekend for the 48-hour film project. I didn't have time to think about it, so I just threw the above EQ rules at everything, modifying each band by +/-2dB to +/-4dB, being less agressive on the lows and more aggressive on the highs. You can actually be much more aggressive with the cuts and get away with it.
The voices sounded *great*. We used a long shotgun (our best mic) indoors, and the ambience was very natural. It didn't sound boomy, in a cave or anything like that. In fact, it sounded very intimate. It gave the feeling of being very close to the actors in a quiet invironment. You could hear lips, tongue and breath. There was just enough room effect to sound in-place.
The music sounded a bit hollow. This was great for my forelorn score, but wouldn't work in all cases. If this happens, just back off the EQ adjustments to taste. During the swells when there was no dialog, I wish I had gone with a more neutral EQ to give more power, but it wasn't in the time budget.
The bottom line is that I could run music peaks simultaneous with dialog and never lose an ounce of intelligibility.
The other "rules" I used were:
1) Mix nominal dialog so it peaks around -12 dB. Find the loudest normal speech, and set your fader for the -12dB peak goal (ignoring plosives and the odd loud sound).
2) When the dialog is too loud, use an envelope to cut only the offending syllables. This keeps your noise floor consistent between sounds.
3) Copy the dialog track and apply heavy noise reduction. Only mix this in when the dialog is too faint. Mixing this in won't affect the noise floor, and you've still got the unprocessed stuff from the main track in there, so the NR artifacts will remain somewhat hidden. You can be sloppy with the envelope, as there should be little noise between words. For dead syllables, mix up both tracks on just that syllable. (Fortunately, the EQ tricks help avoid dead syllables.)
4) Mix the music as needed. Rather than use compression, mix down the offending instrument or envelope down just the loud hits.
5) When done, especially if you are the composer, mix the overall music down another 2 to 3 dB. No one loves your score as much as you do.
6) Review the whole thing. Envelope the music back up in the dynamic swells, if needed. Step 5 gave us more headroom - let's use it.
7) Check your peaks. The maximum should be about 1.5dB below full scale, just to be safe. You can peak higher on an explosions or gun shots (which are just a loud noises), but not as high on a loud voice or music, which have understandable information.
There are countless other tricks as well - especially if you have a multiband compressor on hand. But we're not mixing the world's loudest CD here. We're mixing for a film. We've got dynamic range. Use it.
In any case, if you're not a professional audio mixer, just go with the above rules, and your DVD print will have understandable dialog, safe levels, room for dynamics and a consistent level of background noise. The result should sound professional.
Enjoy!
__________________
Jon Fairhurst
http://PoorlyProjectedPictures.com
--Posted with permission from Mr. Fairhurst.
