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Question about using reverb in Adobe Audition.

H

harmonica44

In the reverb options, they give choices 'large bathroom, hall, empty living room, etc.

But what if you want to hear a voice or sound that is outside the room, in which the scene is in? I want to hear someone's voice come from another room, what then? Or if I what if I have a scene where a car is pulled over in a parking spot, and their is a lot of heavy traffic out the window. I have traffic sounds, but how do I make it sound like the sound of traffic is from the interior of the car's point of view?

I can't find an online manual that talks about any other place to access reverbs like that, other than the choices that are under the 'reverb' option.
 
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Reverb alone isn't going to give you the effect you're looking for. You need to alter the signal differently than just adding reverb.

You will certainly want a small amount of reverb, but what's really going to get you most of the way to the sound you're looking to emulate is EQ and possibly some flanging or wah to introduce a bit of phase shifting, again lightly.

Most of the effect though should be EQ and perhaps a bit of panning depending on the screen direction
 
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Here, again, you prove that you have absolutely no feel for sound. You never LISTEN, really seriously LISTEN to the world around you. And you never play with your toys. All you do is wallow in self pity and moan about how you can't do things.

Lesson - Attenuation of Frequencies

I'm going to keep it kindergarten simple and not get into physics, acoustics and psychoacoustics.

Solid objects attenuate sound. The density of the object determines which frequencies and how much of them are attenuated; i.e a solid brick wall inhibits all of the upper and midrange frequencies, allowing only low frequencies through. A sheetrock wall will inhibit high frequencies and upper midrange frequencies. The amplitude of the sound will also affect frequency attenuation - and a myriad of other permutations.

In the reality of your next room scenario there is also reverb in the room on the other side of the wall affecting frequency content. So, there are the voices in the "conversation" room, the reverb of the "conversation" room, the sheetrock in the "conversation" room attenuating frequencies, the hollow space between the walls resonating, the sheetrock in the "listening" room attenuating frequencies, and the reverb of the "listening" room.

Simple solution - You can accurately reproduce this effect with an IR reverb like Altiverb (which has Other Room presets). Tweak to taste.

No budget simple solution - use a low pass filter to attenuate high and mid-range frequencies before sending it through the "listening" room reverb.


Since we are filmmakers we are creating a believable illusion, not recreating reality, so you must first decide if the sound(s) coming from next door are intelligible or not. That will determine how much frequency content to attenuate. Then add reverb to match the rest of the scene.
 
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Okay thanks. I see what you mean. My movie making friends, think I am being way too specific and that audiences will not notice such complexity, but if I do, they will, that's my rule. I understand the concept of what you mean, I just don't know which filters, EQs and reverbs to pick to emulate those sound concepts. I tried picking "The Club downstairs", and so far that is giving the closest sound for what cars driving by sounds like, while inside a car, but not the most accurate for just one filter.
 
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I think you completely missed the point that Alcove (and myself) made... ONE 'filter' alone isn't going to do it for you.

There is no magic button you can press to make it exactly the way you need. Play with the tools you have available until you find a sound that feels right. Then listen to that in several different environments and check that it still feels right. When you get that, you're done.

Expecting any filter, plugin, or preset to just magically work and be perfect is kind of, well... stupid.
 
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Oh I know that. I'm just saying that so far that's the only filter I can find. I am still looking for more, and found out a while ago that you always have to apply a combo when it comes to sounds.
 
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Do you have an EQ? Use the low pass filter and attenuate the highs and mids. Put another EQ in the chain and play with the rest of the frequency spectrum on multiple bands to adjust the intelligibility. Then use a reverb send/buss for the room the character is in.

Professional mixers like APE will have four or five inserts on each channel, plus several effects sends and sometimes even parallel processing sends.


On an audio post forum I frequent they were recently discussing what they all use in their dialog chain. One member uses this:

DX track

WNS (or equivalent)
Notch EQ
Shaping EQ
Light compressor
De-esser

Dialogue Buss

EQ
Limiter


Another uses this:

DX track

gen eq
notch
broadband denoiser
deesser
trim.

Dialogue Buss

compressor
limiter

A third uses:

DX track

Q10
WNS/W43 (Hopefully soon to be Cedar)
EQ7
Waves De-ess

Dialogue Buss

Massey CT4 (Very light)
C4 or DSM (Does more of the heavy lifting)
L1


Everyone has their preferences. BTW, note that there was no discussion of futz tracks or effects sends, which is another topic entirely.


Mixing is a very complex subject, one in which APE is far more experienced than I am.
 
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harmonica44 said:
But what if you want to hear a voice or sound that is outside the room, in which the scene is in? I want to hear someone's voice come from another room, what then? Or if I what if I have a scene where a car is pulled over in a parking spot, and their is a lot of heavy traffic out the window. I have traffic sounds, but how do I make it sound like the sound of traffic is from the interior of the car's point of view?
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This is a tricky area and you have already been given good advice here. The only piece of advice I would avoid is the use of flanging or phase effects. While this type of effects use is not uncommon in music production it's virtually always avoided in TV/Film sound, as it can cause a number of predictable and unpredictable problems.

While the type of effect you are after always involves the use of a LPF, as previously stated, this is only going to get you part of the way there. It's not uncommon to band limit a signal (using both a LPF and a HPF) and it's quite common to boost certain frequency bands, but exactly what EQ you apply depends on how far away the source signal is supposed to be, the frequency content of the original recording of that source signal and what materials are supposed to be between the sound and the listener. You also have to consider that not only do you have the reflections/reverb of the acoustic space in which the sound was created but also the different acoustic space of the room/environment where the sound is being heard. The solution to this would appear to be placing two different reverbs in series but in practise this rarely works satisfactorily, although an echo in series with a reverb can sometimes work well.

Ultimately, as already mentioned, there is no rule or fixed method of achieving what you want in this case. It's almost always a combination of tools which are applied in different amounts and in different ways to achieve a convincing and "right" sound. The two difficulties here are knowing what a convincing and "right" sound is, and in knowing the right tools and combination of tools to achieve that sound. In both cases, being able to hear and analyse sound carefully is essential, as is knowledge and experience of using and applying the various audio tools. The more fine detail and professional sounding audio you want, the more knowledge, experience and professional quality tools you need.

G
 
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Okay thanks, I'll get cracking on more effects and see.

For next time, do you think it would be better to record the dialogue on location realistically? Like have the mic in the room where the scene is shot in, then have the actor go to another room, and aim the mic towards his direction, to get all that ambiance and muffling? And record heavy traffic from inside a closed car instead?
 
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i can't remember ever being given production sound recorded from the actual perspective like you suggest. It might be worth a try but to be honest I think it unlikely to produce the desired results, for a number of reasons. This could well be an example of a very rare exception to the usual rule, where stereo mic'ing might be preferable in this case for recording the dialogue.

If you do try it, I would only try it in addition to a normal recording though, not instead of it!

G
 
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harmonica44 said:
For next time, do you think it would be better to record the dialogue on location realistically? Like have the mic in the room where the scene is shot in, then have the actor go to another room, and aim the mic towards his direction, to get all that ambiance and muffling? And record heavy traffic from inside a closed car instead?
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I would say no.

Garbage in - Garbage out...


Record clean audio, and make it sound unclean in post. For what it's worth, it's not easy to get everything sounding just right, if it were everybody would do it. I feel like, despite the fact you've acknowledged there is not shortcut or 'magic button' you're still looking for one.
 
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Okay thanks. I am just looking for what to do in general. I am realizing that a mic cannot record just anything. I mean with a camera, you can point it at anything and shoot. Cars doors whatever. But getting actors to sound like they are in those areas, has to be done in post, which I am coming to realizing. I was told before to try to do as much on set as possible to save work in post. But I want to do it right, if post is the way to go.

So basically record with the mic as close as possible, then make it sound far away. I recorded sounds of dogs for a scene, but the dogs were far away in a backyard. Same with the cars I recorded, which were more like 10 feet away, rather than 18 inches, for a shotgun. Should I use them, or should all my sounds be recorded close up?
 
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This just proves that you don't have a feel for sound, or that you haven't done any homework in the last two+ years - most probably both.

I learned 50% of what I know by reading and interacting with other sound folks, 30% by playing with my toys endlessly, the rest by listening most carefully to and observing professionals at work. Then I put many hundreds of hours putting what I learned into action. You have been given very explicit instructions and philosophical discussions in this forum and have learned nothing so far as I can tell, because we have been over this ground ad nauseam.
 
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harmonica44 said:
So basically record with the mic as close as possible, then make it sound far away.
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I don't know where you got this from but it's not been suggested here! You seem to be looking for a set of simple rules to make it easy to record/make sound where there are none or where there are a few generalities. If you want to get/create good sound, rather than looking for a set of simple rules, which either don't exist or only apply some of the time, you have to start learning about how sound actually works.

While there are many similarities between sound and images in certain areas, there are also many ways in which sound is completely different. As you say, you can point a camera at something and capture an image but you can't take photos around corners or through walls, whereas you take for granted that you can hear around corners. You need to not only learn but understand and apply all the implications of the fact that many of the tools we use to measure and process sound use scales which do not correspond to how we hear sound. For example we use a linear scale for measuring frequency (the Hertz scale) but we do not hear frequency linearly and we use the logarithmic decibel scale to measure a sound's energy content but we don't hear logarithmically and we don't perceive loudness in a way which is directly related to the amount of energy which a sound contains.

In the statement I have quoted, if you record a sound with the mic as close as possible, you are going to record a range of frequencies and a level of detail which will sound unnatural. To use your example of a dog barking, recording with a mic close up, you are going to capture all kinds of breathing and mouth sounds of the dog which would be inaudible from more than a couple yards or so away and you are not going to record much of the acoustics which will dominate the perception of a dog barking from a distance. These things can be fixed/faked in audio post but require time, experience and the necessary tools to do convincingly. Furthermore, a term like "convincingly" is a moving target like "good quality" and rarely can "convincingly" be achieved perfectly. On the other hand, recording the dog from distance is going to result in considerable noise and the recording of acoustic effects which are fixed. Sometimes though the additional noise and acoustic effects in the recording is not so much of a problem and is trumped by being "convincing" but there is no absolute rule here. All this becomes even more complicated when recording and processing dialogue and to do either really well takes years of study and practise and not a little skill and simply cannot be condensed down into a simple set of rules.

G
 
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harmonica44 said:
Okay thanks. How's the sound in this clip
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Have you actually sat in a car with the doors closed and listened to the background traffic sound? How about setting up a mic inside a car, recording the sound of passing traffic and then comparing it with your mix or even using it in your mix! I don't think what you've done sounds in the least bit convincing but I can't go through every sound in whatever you're mixing and tell you what sounds unconvincing and how to fix it. You've got to develop the ability to work out what is convincing (and unconvincing) yourself.

G
 
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I've tried but recording sounds from inside a car is surprising difficult. Their is too much noise from inside the car, like clothes russeling, when I move the mic to follow the cars. And the russeling is off axis so it does not sound proper. But I will keep trying.
 
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harmonica44 said:
I've tried but recording sounds from inside a car is surprising difficult. Their is too much noise from inside the car, like clothes russeling, when I move the mic to follow the cars. And the russeling is off axis so it does not sound proper. But I will keep trying.
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So don't follow the cars. You're recording the ambience inside the car, not the vehicles outside of the car. Set up the mic, set your levels, hit record, get out of the car, lock the doors and find a place to sit nearby for 30 minutes or so.

BTW, it's RUSTLING, not russeling.
 
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