Instant Surround Sound

Jeffrey P. Fisher

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2012
• ISBN:
  9781136063336
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Media & Performing Arts
• Subtopic: Film Direction & Production

* The V.A.S.S.T. Instant Series features a visually oriented, step-by-step instructional style that effectively guides readers through complex processes. * Surround sound is rapidly displacing stereophonic sound as the accepted standard. * This low-price-point book is an easy buy to provide the reader a foundation in the technology that will serve them regardless of the software they chose. Instant Surround Sound demystifies the multichannel process for both musical and visual environments. This comprehensive resource teaches techniques for mixing and encoding for surround sound. It is packed with tips and tricks that help the reader to avoid the most common (and uncommon) pitfalls. This is the fifth title in the new V.A.S.S.T. Instant Series. Music and visual producers can enhance the listening experience and engage their audience more effectively with the improved perceptive involvement of surround sound. Record, process, and deliver effective and stunning surround sound to your listener with the aid of this guide. Packed with useful, accessible information for novice and experienced users alike, you get carefully detailed screenshots, step-by-step directions, and creative suggestions for producing better audio projects.

Chapter 7

Audio Post Surround Mixing Techniques

The soundtrack to any visual presentation is well over half the experience. Don’t believe me? Put in your favorite Hollywood movie and watch it without the sound. While the visual aspects may still be stunning, it is the soundtrack that makes it all come alive. Building a surround sound mix to accompany your videos opens up a whole new world of creative expression. By far the easiest (and cheapest!) way to make your videos look better is to make them sound better.

Crafting the Killer Soundtrack

Most people mistakenly believe that the primary function of a soundtrack is to support the visual portion. Soundtracks create reality where none may exist. While that is very important, it’s not always what is really going on. Good soundtracks play to the subtext of the piece and work their magic by directing audience attention and influencing emotion.

Audiences put up with “bad” video, but never poor sound.

Hold a “spotting” session with the director, picture editor, and producer to go through the video and discuss sound issues.

Whether you are working in video, TV, film, or games, the workflow for pulling together the soundtrack is deceptively simple:

1. Make decisions about all the sounds needed for the project. What do you have already and what do you need?
2. Gather all the sounds. This entails recording, creating them from scratch, layering, and drawing on pre-existing elements (such as sound effects libraries).
3. Tweak these sound elements to fit the project.
4. Synchronize the sounds to match on-screen action.
5. Mix the elements appropriately. Good soundtracks use contrast, volume, dynamics, surround placement, and effects appropriately, filling the sound frequency spectrum with deep lows, solid midrange, and crisp highs. You must juggle all the disparate sound elements, making speech intelligibility your number-one priority.
6. Deliver the completed soundtrack.

Soundtrack Elements Include:

Dialog

• Production dialog—includes interviews, stand-ups, etc.
• ADR “looped” dialog—fixed in post-production
• Group walla—post-recorded crowd sounds such as all the extras in a restaurant scene
• Voice-over

Sound Effects and Sound Design

• Production effects—field-recorded sounds
• Hard effects—typically post-synced sound effects such as a door closing
• Backgrounds—general sounds of places and settings, such as a factory

Foley

• Footsteps—recorded in post while watching the visuals and mimicking the action
• Clothing
• Props

Music

• Source—music seen and heard on screen, such as a radio playing
• Underscore—dramatic music

Sound Resources

There are many companies that offer buy-out sound effects and music on CD.

Sound Effects Libraries:

• Hollywood Edge (www.hollywoodedge.com)
• Sonomic (www.sonomic.com)
• SoundDogs.com (www.sounddogs.com)
• Sound Effects Library.com (www.sound-effects-library.com)

Keep complex projects organized by grouping sound families on adjacent tracks. Don’t place dissimilar elements such as dialog and sound effects on the same track.

Production Music Libraries:

• Digital Juice (www.digitaljuice.com)
• Fresh Music (www.freshmusic.com)
• Music Bakery (www.musicbakery.com)
• VideoHelper (www.videohelper.com)

Don’t infringe on copyrights; license all sound effects and music for your productions.

Voice Rules!

The dialog track is the most important part to virtually every visual presentation. I use the word dialog as an umbrella term for all voice-based tracks including interviews, voice-over, reporter stand-ups, and, of course, dialog. Focus on capturing top-quality voice in the field, because most other sounds can be added in post-production.

Always capture room tone and presence at every location. Room tone and presence smoothes and hides edits, making the finished track sound better.

With few exceptions, anchor all your dialog to the center channel. Place a little in the phantom center between the stereo L/R, too.

Adding a 2db to 4dB EQ bump centered at 1.75kHz can help speech intelligibility.

Occasionally, an off-screen voice can be interesting when placed in the surrounds, for example, when a character enters a room.

VOs can sound good right in the audience’s face. Balance the center channel with the Ls/Rs as mentioned in the previous chapter.

Use the dialnorm setting as your dialog referenc...