Just picked up a Zoom H4n. I have made the decision to shoot sound separate, instead of running my shotgun mic into the Canon T2I. When I compared the difference, the sound recorded with the Zoom and shotgun was better when compared to the Canon and shotgun. Now I have another challenge, syncing sound. What are some things to keep in mind when recording sound separate? Are there any issues when you try to sync Zoom H4N audio to 1080 24p video.
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shooting sound separate
- Thread starter wparrish24
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If it's not supposed to be roomy, and your space is ambient, just get the talent in close enough to eliminate the problem - you can always manipulate it later.
Data house keeping...
here is the reply from beachtek (multiple replies concatenated for brevity.. )
Thanks for writing!
Yes, that is a very common and smart way to record audio. You can do so with he DXA-6 but you will need a "Y" cable to send the signal to both XLR inputs. You can then adjust each channel separately.
You did mention that you needed phantom power. There is no problem in doing this as the 48 phantom voltage is a common voltage that is split to go to each channel. You would simply be recombining the voltage which is no problem.
Yes, there would be a slight added load on each microphone that should be insignificant. Most pro mics have an output impedance of 250 to 400 ohms and the adapter input impedance is over 5k ohm.
I hope this helps.
Cheers,
Harry Kaufmann
BeachTek
wait so for ADR, the actor literally has to match his own lips??? How many takes in studio does that take?!!
ROC thanks for showing me the clip... enlightening but it doesn't seem so magical anymore! Thought there was a program that distorted the length of the dialogue to match the lips. haha
ROC thanks for showing me the clip... enlightening but it doesn't seem so magical anymore! Thought there was a program that distorted the length of the dialogue to match the lips. haha
It used to take a lot of takes but now-a-days with digital editing it's easy to slide it around so it matches.
ADR is not as hard as people think it is - unless you don't have a musical ear or a sense of pitch and rhythm.
All you are doing is listening to what you said before, and then you say it again. It's like repeating yourself. It's simple. But some people who are tone-deaf and have no sense of timing or rhythm, you can spend hours on one line. Trust me, I've recorded actors like that before.
You do have to match the lips - that's the point. Sadly, some people don't do it as well so it looks bad - some movies where you go "that didn't look right" on the sync is usually the case of bad ADR editing. Law Abiding Citizen I heard was an example of bad ADR.
ADR is not always necessary. In fact, it's a sign that your set sound team sucks and didn't do it right the first time.
The Hurt Locker is a great example of this. Plus, I know absolutely for a fact that it wouldn't have won Best Picture if they had to ADR the whole movie - so the production mixer should be given all of the kudos in my opinion. Without the original performances it would have suffered greatly as a movie.
That's another reason why capturing sound on set the first time correctly is so important.
ADR is not as hard as people think it is - unless you don't have a musical ear or a sense of pitch and rhythm.
All you are doing is listening to what you said before, and then you say it again. It's like repeating yourself. It's simple. But some people who are tone-deaf and have no sense of timing or rhythm, you can spend hours on one line. Trust me, I've recorded actors like that before.
You do have to match the lips - that's the point. Sadly, some people don't do it as well so it looks bad - some movies where you go "that didn't look right" on the sync is usually the case of bad ADR editing. Law Abiding Citizen I heard was an example of bad ADR.
ADR is not always necessary. In fact, it's a sign that your set sound team sucks and didn't do it right the first time.
The Hurt Locker is a great example of this. Plus, I know absolutely for a fact that it wouldn't have won Best Picture if they had to ADR the whole movie - so the production mixer should be given all of the kudos in my opinion. Without the original performances it would have suffered greatly as a movie.
That's another reason why capturing sound on set the first time correctly is so important.
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That is extremely unfair.
The fault usually lies with the director and/or producer who do not want to spend the time and/or money to get the sound right. That's one of the reasons I got out of doing production sound. They would spend three hours setting up a shot and when I wanted three minutes to get solid levels "we don't have the time." I was once on a shoot where I was told point blank to "get the f*** off the set" when I tried to get in boom practice while they were blocking the scene; somehow it was a distraction. I've run into numerous similar problems when trying to properly wire up lavs, etc.
Another problem is poorly planned/located sets. My "favorite" story is a director who adamantly insisted on one location despite the fact that the production sound mixer, the producer and myself pointed out that being directly under an airport approach with a train switching yard 200 yards east and a major truck route 25 yards to the west would cause huge problems for the production sound. Then there are those who fail to properly place and isolate the generator. Other problems include noisy crew or poorly chosen costumes like vinyl jackets, courderoy pants, etc.
It is common practice to ADR action scenes, despite a few films like "Hurt Locker" and "Inglourious Basterds." There is just too much other technology happening - pyro, wind machines and the like.
Then, of course, there never seems to be the time to capture dialog wilds.
Sound has been a third class citizen for quite a while now. Long gone are the days when the production sound mixer had the power to yell "CUT!!!" when the sound wasn't right.
Well, yeah,
Sorry - I didn't mean it like that.
I sort of meant what you were saying - the Director and co. don't have a clue -
I would have straight up drove off if the director said that to me and not done sound that day so that when he goes to edit the damn thing he has no track and his producer would whisper to him "uh... you told the sound recordist to get the *** of the set" - wow what a dumb a**. I bet he hasn't made a dime on his movies - right?
Anyway - granted there are fight scenes and all that, but there is no reason to literally do 98% of dialogue for every movie if you have someone like yourself running the show and keeping things straight.
Which is another characteristic of a good soundman - being able to hold his ground and work for directors who care about the sound.
They think they are saving money? ADR bills are hefty - let me tell you.
Sorry - I didn't mean it like that.
I sort of meant what you were saying - the Director and co. don't have a clue -
I would have straight up drove off if the director said that to me and not done sound that day so that when he goes to edit the damn thing he has no track and his producer would whisper to him "uh... you told the sound recordist to get the *** of the set" - wow what a dumb a**. I bet he hasn't made a dime on his movies - right?
Anyway - granted there are fight scenes and all that, but there is no reason to literally do 98% of dialogue for every movie if you have someone like yourself running the show and keeping things straight.
Which is another characteristic of a good soundman - being able to hold his ground and work for directors who care about the sound.
They think they are saving money? ADR bills are hefty - let me tell you.
No. It helps if the lines are close, but you can use tools like CUT, COPY, PASTE, EXPAND/COMPRESS (stretch or tighten the audio length, without affecting the pitch) to make it match up. There is also software like VocAlign which will line up dialogue.
I've also done it by waveform matching, by putting the dubbed track under the original audio and lining up the peaks in the waveforms. I've also formed words/sentences from multiple takes, by ramping one track of a certain take down, as the other take ramps up.
I think computers make this so much easier than what I used to do, which was sample people's voices onto different keyboard keys and play it back to the picture, while recording into a MIDI sequencer. You can see an example of that at the 2:24 mark of THIS old video.
Vocalign is a lifesaver when doing ADR work; as long as the line is close Vocalign will sync it perfectly. On occasion I'll have to slice & dice and then Volcalign when the talent is ADR skill bereft.
Back in the "old" days - pre-digital - replacing dialog was called "Looping." They would make literal loops of film with the original dialog and play the loop over and over while the talent redid the dialog line by line. Apparently Bogart and Spencer Tracy were very good at it, and legend has it that Brando would purposefully mumble on-set so he could loop his dialog for a better performance.
Many directors prefer production dialog as the performances are more honest.
Back in the "old" days - pre-digital - replacing dialog was called "Looping." They would make literal loops of film with the original dialog and play the loop over and over while the talent redid the dialog line by line. Apparently Bogart and Spencer Tracy were very good at it, and legend has it that Brando would purposefully mumble on-set so he could loop his dialog for a better performance.
Many directors prefer production dialog as the performances are more honest.