Newfound respect for you audio engis

S

stef

Everyone tells filmmakers "Don't neglect audio! It's half the experience!" so I tried to capture decent audio.

But holy crap, "decent" is subjective. After days of foley and bg recordings, I started on the captured audio. It might take me longer to edit the audio than it took our editor to do the entire film. And I'm terrified that it's going to suck.

When editing film, I can immediately see the results on something like a simple white balance or color grading. But doing the same for audio takes a long time, and several listens, and it's not easy to do a side-by-side comparison like on film. I calibrated my monitor, but how the hell do I calibrate cans? I don't have a good room that can be used, although I do have some monitor speakers with a good amp on my desk.

Editing 5 minutes of film might take anywhere from an hour to a day (obviously depending on what needs to be done) ... but audio is taking me a crazy amount of time, and I'm just posting here to blow off some steam. I hear every lip smack, every clothing swish, and if the boom moved too fast. I've learned how to use certain filters to strip out certain noise and how to compress out some background sounds, but getting the right timbre or sound quality back is killing me. Background noise isn't separated well, either, then needs to be stripped out and added back in to sound the same between different angles. And panning sound without it sounding like some engineer playing with a L-R knob? Holy crap. Apparently some cuts had a fridge running in the other room! Egads!

So, my hat is off to you guys that do this well, especially if you do it well with newbie equipment (like I got - zoom H6 + cheap condenser hyper pencil + audacity + sony vegas). I'm still trying to figure out how to normalize levels for proper loudness for broadcast TV without any test equipment, and that's an entire subject in itself. Most of the units used in describing sound (SPL, dBMF, loudness etc) I only have a vague idea of what they do and how they relate. :(

You guys are either brilliant and patient, cyborgs or other artificial lifeforms, or absolutely insane. Maybe all of the above.
 
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Because that type of phase cancellation scheme never seems to work out as you want it to. Why? Phase cancellation depends upon the sound sources being almost identical, and, if the sound sources are almost identical, then they both contain the dialog, hence the dialog will get cancelled as well.

Trust me, it's been tried by the best - and yours truly, as well.
 
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stef said:
In environments that aren't highly controlled, is it reasonable/possible/practicable for a boom to have two mics - one hyper or shotgun pointing towards the sound source, and a cardiod pointing AWAY from the sound source, to be used as a noise cancellation reverse waveform?
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No, that wouldn't work as Alcove stated. Doing as you suggest is still exactly the same problem or rather the inverse of exactly the same problem! Just as you can't eliminate noise when recording the dialogue, you can't eliminate the dialogue when recording the noise. So, you're still stuck with the same problem of differentiating between what's noise and what's dialogue when they both occupy so many of the same frequencies.

You have the additional problem that noise may appear to be uniform but any subtle changes in a wide variety of variables changes the noise. For example; different parts of the same room will have quite different noise signatures, due to noise reflections and absorption from walls, ceiling, floor, furniture, crew and equipment. In other words, if you have another mic pointing away from the sound source (actor speaking the dialogue) you are almost certain to be recording different noise to what is recorded along with the dialogue. Dialogue editors face this problem frequently because in practise it's often very difficult to record accurate (matching) room tone. Maybe the only time the PSM can record room tone is when the actors or crew have moved position or even left the set.

Noise cancelling headphones can work reasonably well but remember they work on the principle of trying to eliminate the noise of one environment from a different environment. For example, removing the listener's environment (say the inside a moving car) from a commercial CD or radio broadcast. This is relatively trivial compared to trying to remove different parts of the same environment and even so, noise cancelling headphones as still far from perfect. BTW, as noise cancelling headphones work on the principle of removing the noise of the environment you are in, they are a particularly bad choice for location sound recording, where the environment you are in is the one you're recording and trying to monitor!

stef said:
Just the simple fact that you said "I would actually have to hear it, with the picture, to come up with any possible suggestions" is telling. Why would a sound guy need the picture? Because of everything else you said above: making it believable. And making something believable requires the context of the picture! This is great info for the newbie.
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Yes. On the one hand I'd need to hear it, so I could identify exactly what the problem is, it's frequency range and severity and come up with potential solutions. On the other hand the picture would be handy because it might provide the opportunity to hide/disguise some of the noise and/or noise removal artefacts, which could influence both the method of noise removal employed and the amount of noise removal applied. For example, if the scene were located in a major city, we might be able to use some noise of heavy road traffic, police sirens or air traffic to help mask some of our offending noise. However, we obviously wouldn't be able to use these sounds (believably) if the scene were set in some remote part of the countryside. This is an obviously extreme example, but there maybe far more subtle clues or implications in the story and visuals which we might be able to bend to our purposes.

G

PS. If you haven't already seen it, you might find The Prinicples of Sound Design thread informative.
 
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This thread makes me sad face, it reminds me how long my road ahead is, especially since I am usually doing EVERY part of production myself. It's amazing how if the sound that goes into the microphone sounds like crap, the result sounds like crap. Go figure. Who would have though booming is an art in itself? Lesson learned: ALWAYS MONITOR AUDIO.
 
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Alcove Audio said:
At least you've learned the lesson; many never do.
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When I first got my Zoom H1 / Rode VideoMic Pro setup, I thought it would be as simple as: Plug it in, aim it at the actor, hit record. After I did a few videos and found the audio lacking, I plugged in my monitoring headphones into the H1 and found out what a huge difference moving the mic a few degrees or closer by a few inches does!

I have found this combo seems to be not as sensitive as "higher end mics", but perhaps I just need to boost the gain some more? I've heard the rule of thumb is usually "Overhead, 45 degree angle, an arm's reach away", but for some reason my mic doesn't sound GOOD until about 18 inches or less away...Too close for some shots.
 
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The closer the better. The mic should be above and in front of the talent, aimed at the notch at the base of the throat.

Your production sound set-up costs, what, $350? A professional production sound kit can cost $50,000 to $100,000. You are not going to get the same quality sound as you lack the expertise, skills and experience, and you need more of those three things to overcome the limitations of your consumer sound kit.


BTW, now you know why great boom-ops make $350/day and up.
 
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Yes, my setup was around $350. Definitely a step up above in-camera, but definitely a few notches below pro or at least pro-sumer audio equipment. A lot of work needs to go into post production EQ to really bring out the vocals. I've never wanted to spend "too much" on my videos, and if I did start making money, I'd just use it to re-invest in better equipment. One good thing about using lower level equipment is that when you move up to higher end gear, if you were able to get decent to good results with lower end products, the higher end equipment will just give better results, so long as you know how to use it. What I mean is it is an easier step up rather than just jumping onto 100k worth of gear.
 
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