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wrote:
I should have been a little clearer. I'm doing post audio on
life-style
sequences. I have a very limited selection of stock music with some
higher end intruments that occasionally fight with the voice track.
The shows are interview dialogue driven, no voice overs. This is why
I
use the normalizing filter. The source material is all over the
place.

The advice to use your ears rather than a set eq formula is good
advice, but a consistent methodology is a good thing to work on
developing.

I mix TV in kind of a "Post Production" style although it's live,
with a lot of animations (Deko, Profile, Viz)married to music or SFX's,
Cart music tracks and announces, packages on Tape, Live remotes with
Natural sound or Guests, and in studio Guests with multiple Anchors.
The 2 buss limiter on my Neve 55 console really helps, which is
similar to the SSL and the Alan Smart 2 buss limiters (and automakeup
gain is your friend.) An Aphex Compellor can be nice on a 2 Buss Mix
sometimes too. Usually I start out preparing to mix by playing the
music theme at it's loudest level hitting 0VU as a reference point for
my maximum volume level, making sure that I am not hitting my 2 buss
limiter very hard at all and setting a release time that lets the music
rhythmically breathe a bit. I may add a bit of eq to taste if the 2
buss limiter is dulling the tracks a bit, and I may cut some in the
140-500Hz region if there is so much content there that the limiter is
being triggered too much by those frequencies. Some Hip Hop and
Classical music, and poorly mixed Rock and Pop is typically frequency
heavy in that region and many compressors and limiters respond to the
low/low middle range first. You have to tame that region on all your
audio sources or you won't be able to get things apparently louder
before everything turns to mush, which can "mask" other audio sources
and make a voice over/person speaking unintelligible.

Anyway after music I set the levels for my Voice Talent (or in
your case the interviews you are tracking) to hit 0VU with a bit of
compression (or a lot depending on the person), and check that the
voice full works with the music "under", adding eq if needed to cut
through the music or cutting if the voice is overly sibilant/harsh or
murky sounding. If I have time I might try to match the "hardness" of
my various audio sources (tapes, remotes, SFX or various kinds) to each
other for evenness sake, by adjusting pre and post compressor levels on
my group busses.

Sometimes though, if your limiters suck and are too squashy to use,
then you have to live with levels that might go over 0VU all the time
and just ride your faders. But being pretty busy with breaking news,
checking in remotes and a lot of on the fly programming changes, I do
like having things set up to where I can just track a fader to zero or
to -20 or -7 and have the levels stay pretty consistent without having
to overly ride things.

YMMV.

Will Miho
NY Music & TV Audio Guy Staff Audio / Fox News / M-AES
"The large print giveth and the small print taketh away..." Tom Waits